Abstract
Heritage timber structures in China have many connections of different forms in their construction which have a complex but significant contribution to the seismic resistance of the structure. An analytical mechanical model of a typical heritage timber frame with multiple nonlinear connections is developed in this paper for investigating its seismic performances in terms of energy transference within the structure. Analytical models of the mortise-tenon connections with gaps, free-standing column foot connections and Dougong-column head connections are introduced. Hybrid finite elements including these connections are then adopted for the dynamic analysis of this structure. The input seismic energy of a heritage timber frame is converted, in the loading process, to two types of recoverable and non-recoverable energies. The former consists of the kinetic energy, the elastic strain energy and the gravitational potential energy stored in the roof structure. The latter consists of the dissipated energy due to damping and that due to friction in the connections which correspond to 96.51% and 3.49% of the input energy in the timber frame studied.
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