California State University researchers are participating in an earthquake simulation test for timber construction

Adapted from a press release from the Colorado School of Mines

Buildings made of group lumber — layers of wood bonded together — are gaining popularity as greener, faster alternatives to concrete and steel structures. With new building codes recently updated to allow more tall wooden buildings to be built in the United States, many have wondered how such buildings sustain earthquakes.

The Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) project, in which engineering researchers at Colorado State University play a critical role, aims to investigate the resilience of tall timber buildings by simulating a series of large earthquakes on the entire scale of a 10-story collective timber building this spring. – World’s tallest full size building tested on earthquake simulator or shake table. The research project is funded by the US National Science Foundation.

John van de Lindt, a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and expert in seismic analysis and resilience, is working on the project with longtime colleague and former student, Shilling Bay. Once a Ph.D. Student and postdoctoral researcher at CSU, Pei is the principal investigator on the Tallwood project and a civil engineering faculty member at the Colorado School of Mines.

During the project, Van de Lindt and his students at California State University will help assess damage to the building from a resilience perspective and estimate how long it will take for the building to return to normal function after an earthquake. Van de Lindt said the technical term is “functional recovery” and it’s likely the future of structural design codes in the United States.

“Working with Ling (Shiling Pei) and the other members of the Tallwood team, including all industry partners, to get this test ready has been an amazing experience,” said Van de Lindt. “Although I have conducted a number of extensive large-scale construction tests around the world, each has unique challenges and opportunities: people, place, schedule, but most of all discovery.”

Timber block is a growing trend for buildings

Collective timbers are part of a growing trend in architecture and construction, Pai said, but the seismic performance of tall buildings made with these new systems is not as well understood as other existing building systems.

The team designed a 10-storey long lateral system and wooden vibrating wall suitable for areas with high earthquake risk. This new system aims for resilient performance, which means that the building will suffer minimal earthquake damage at the design level and can be quickly repaired after rare earthquakes.

A swing wall system consists of a solid wood wall panel anchored to the ground with steel cables or rods that have significant tension forces in them, according to Pai. “When subjected to lateral forces, the wooden wall panels will sway back and forth – reducing the effects of the earthquake – and then the steel bars will pull the building back into its normal position once the earthquake has passed,” he said.

Due to this oscillating system-induced seismic motion, non-structural components with critical resilience within the building and its covering, such as the exterior facade, interior walls, and staircases, are in for a significant ride.

The project team focused on safety-critical non-structural components that extend from floor to floor and are therefore subject to relative movement between floors. The building features four exterior facades, a number of interior walls, and a 10-storey stair tower. The exterior envelope must protect the building from temperature extremes and weather events, while stairs must remain functional to allow safe egress for occupants and first responders to have continuous access to all floors of the building.

The shakeable tests begin in May

Tests are scheduled to begin in May on the world’s only outdoor vibrating table. The earthquake simulator, located at UCSD’s Englekirk Center for Structural Engineering, part of NSF’s Natural Hazards Engineering research infrastructure, was recently upgraded, through NSF funding, to six degrees of freedom to reproduce ground motions in full 3D. that can occur during an earthquake. It is also now capable of testing payloads of up to 2,000 tons, or more than 4 million pounds.

The tests will simulate seismic motions recorded during previous earthquakes covering a range of earthquake degrees on the Richter scale, from magnitude 4 to magnitude 8. This will be done by accelerating the table to at least 1g, which can accelerate the top of the building to as much as 3g. For reference, fighter pilots experience up to 9g of acceleration in flight.

In 2017, Bay’s team, including Van de Lindt, tested a two-story wooden building by simulating vibration from the Northridge earthquake, a magnitude 6.7 earthquake that struck Los Angeles in 1994. The building was subjected to 13 earthquake tests. It remained free of structural damage. In addition to proving that collective timber building systems can be seismically resilient, those tests helped the research team develop the design and analysis methods that were used for the 10-storey building.

The project is supported by the National Science Foundation. A consortium of universities through NSF support collaborates on the NHERI TallWood project, including Mines as a pilot, and CSU; So are the University of Nevada, Reno, University of Washington, Washington State University, University of California San Diego, Oregon State University, and Lehigh University. The project has also received support from the US Forest Service, the Forest Products Laboratory, and a number of industry partners.

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