Innovative earthquake resistant timber-glass buildings

Abstract

Over the past decade the use of large size glazing has increased with timber structures. Most of the research works done so far have focused on the building physics aspects of the glazing. This paper, however, deals with the seismic behaviour of timber-glass systems. A series of experiments were performed on the shaking table of the IZIIS institute inSkopje,Macedonia. Oneand two-story full scale structures were subjected to a series of ground motions, namely sinus sweep testing, natural and modified ground motion accelerograms. All together 8 different setups were tested in elastic and inelastic behaviour range. Displacements and accelerations were measured in each floor as well as the slipping of walls, uplifting of their corners and the shear deformation of the adhesive between the glass panels and the timber frames. The tested combination of timber-glass walls exhibited a rocking type of behaviour, resulting in a desirable ductile failure of steel hold-downs and not brittle failure of the glazing nor failure of the adhesive. Hence such a combination of glass and timber in wall systems could potentially be used in seismically active areas.