Modeling of wood frame structures with different insulation materials under damaging dynamic loading

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Wood frame buildings are very popular in regions that are exposed to different dynamic excitations, such as damaging earthquakes. Their seismic resistance is really important in order to prevent structural damages and human losses. This paper presents the results of advanced numerical investigation carried out using the FEM. Based on the models of wall panels, the numerical model of real structure of the wood frame building has been proposed for two cases of thermal insulation (using polyurethane foam and mineral wool). Then, the modal analysis for both models has been conducted so as to compare the frequencies of natural vibrations. Finally, the linear and nonlinear dynamic analyses have been carried out so as to investigate the structural behavior under damaging earthquake excitation. The results of the numerical investigation clearly confirm the beneficial effect of using polyurethane foam as thermal insulation. This can be seen both in the results of modal analysis (higher natural frequencies of building) and seismic analyses, which resulted in a significant reduction in peak values of displacements and accelerations, as compared to the case when mineral wool is applied. Moreover, the results of investigation confirm that the use of the FEM with detailed representation of material and geometric structural properties together with the Newmark algorithm can be considered as the effective approach so as to obtain the accurate response of wood frame building under dynamic loading.