Prediction of seismic behavior of wood-framed shear walls with openings by pseudodynamic test and FE model

Abstract

 This article summarizes an experimental and numerical study on seismic behavior of wood-framed shear walls with an opening. The objectives of this study were to compare the results of static and pseudodynamic tests of plywood-sheathed shear walls with numerical simulation by the Finite Element (FE) model and to validate a finite element code EFICOBOIS for such an application. This software is based on a macroelement approach to limit the number of degrees of freedom for the whole system. Nonlinear laws for connections such as nails and hold-down connections, among others, are applied through macroelements that link plate elements to beam elements. Numerical results obtained for the various loading conditions showed good agreement with the experiments. Both static and dynamic computations are presented here.