Seismic performance

IVALSA has carried out a series of tests in order to characterise the mechanical behaviour of X-lam buildings under earthquake loading. Therefore, a research programme has been realised in close collaboration with the Laboratory Materials and Structural Testing of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Trento, the National Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED), the Building Research Institute (BRI), the University of Shizuoka and the Centre for Better Living in Japan that included the following principal steps:

·    Ramp and cyclic tests on wall panels varying connection layout, openings, dimension of panels and vertical loads carried out in the laboratory of IVALSA;
·    Pseudo-dynamic tests on a one-storey specimen with three different opening sizes in the outer walls parallel to the loading carried out at the University of Trento;
·    1D Full-scale shaking table test on a three-storey X-lam building of 7x7x10 meters with three different opening sizes in the outer walls parallel to the earthquake loading and with three different earthquakes in series (El Centro, Kobe and Nocera Umbra) carried out at the NIED in Tsukuba, Japan;
·    3D full-scale seismic test on a seven-storey X-lam building of 7.5x13.5x23.5 meters weighing 285 tonnes in total with two different earthquakes in series (Niigata-Chuetsu-Oki and Kobe) carried out on the E-Defense shaking table of the NIED in Miki, Japan.

Contact:
Carmen Sandhaas
c.sandhaas@tudelft.nl