Civil Engineering Association

MECHANICAL NONLINEAR SHEAR WALL MODEL

Shear walls play a dominant role in the static and dynamic analysis and design of low-rise timber buildings. Shear wall behavior is often difficult to describe. For example, low-rise timber buildings have shear walls made of lumber framing and various sheathing materials. The loaddeformation
plot of a shear wall, when subjected to horizontal loads, is
nonlinear. The analysis of a shear wall building thus requires either full-scale test or nonlinear analysis. Full-scale tests do demonstrate true nonlinear behavior; however, they are often too time consuming and expensive for the number of replications necessary for a statisticallyvalid study. Nonlinear analysis often involves mathematical complexity and instability such that limiting assumptions are necessary to simplify the problems. This study describes a mechanical model which simulates the nonlinear behavior of a shear wall and aids in the construction of inexpensive models of entire shear wall buildings. Static and dynamic measurements obtained using these models can provide reliable results for shear wall buildings. Tests on these wall models will be useful to: (1) Observe nonlinear behavior of the "parent"structure without having to conduct fullscale tests; (2) check the accuracy of linear analysis; and (3) verify the results of nonlinear analysis.