Dissipation in sheathing-to-framing connections of light-frame timber shear walls under seismic loads

The present study is concerned with the seismic analysis and design of light-frame timber shear walls, with focus on the energy dissipation ensured by sheathing-to-framing connections under in-plane lateral loads. In this perspective, a suitable parametric finite element model for light-frame timber shear walls is first developed using the software OpenSees. By means of such model, the equivalent viscous damping of the wall is assessed numerically, together with the damping factor adopted within the capacity spectrum method. Furthermore, the optimal layouts of slender (1.2 m × 2.4 m/3.94 ft × 7.88 ft) and squat (2.4 m × 2.4 m/7.88 ft × 7.88 ft) light-frame timber shear walls are found by solving a multi-objective optimization problem in which racking capacity and total material cost are optimized simultaneously (this task is accomplished via simple enumeration because of the low cardinality of the design variables set). So doing, it is shown that the total material cost of the optimal (non-dominated) wall configurations has a strong influence on the racking capacity whereas it does not affect the equivalent viscous damping ratio, which remains almost constant. A novel simplified analytical procedure for predicting the capacity curve of light-frame timber shear walls is finally proposed.