Structural Behaviors of Chinese Historical Timber-Frame Buildings

Abstract

As a kind of low-carbon, sustainable and environmental-friendly building material, wood has been widely used in ancient timber-frame buildings in China. Chinese ancient timber-structure buildings can not only provide a comfortable indoor environment, but also has an excellent structural behavior. Based on the study of horizontal and vertical layout of structural system, special constructional measures such as Cejiao and Shengqi, the structural behaviors of Chinese ancient timber-frame buildings were studied. Those conclusions were achieved: structural system layout in both horizontal and vertical comply with the existing anti-seismic conceptual design thoughts. When subjected to earthquake, the seismic actions are reduced by means of base sliding isolation, energy dissipation and shock absorption of mortise-tenon joints and tou-kung sets, which make Chinese ancient timber building a multiple aseismic system. Cejiao and Shengqi are equivalent to passive control in modern buildings, which improve the structural integrity, stability and aseismic capacity greatly. The post-and-lintel roof truss is a good way of saving material.