Seismic Behavior of Chinese Traditional Timber Frames with Masonry Infill Wall: Experimental Tests and Hysteretic Model

Abstract

ABSTRACT Traditional timber frames were often filled with timber or masonry infill walls as enclosure components. In this paper, four Chinese traditional timber frame specimens with different types of masonry infill walls were tested under reverse cyclic loading. The contributions of infill walls on seismic performance of timber frames in terms of failure mode, strength, stiffness and energy dissipation were investigated. The experimental results indicated that the masonry infill walls can significantly improve the seismic behaviors of the structure. Masonry infill wall in the timber structure can be regarded as a key component to bearing capacity and energy dissipation capacity. Beyond that, an improved hysteretic model, which is able to accurately capture the nonlinear behavior of the timber frame with infill wall in terms of the force-displacement response was proposed. Good correlation between the proposed hysteretic model and test results indicates the validity of the improved method.