Results of timber-framed shear wall tests

Timber-framed shear walls are designed to resist the lateral loads on a building from wind and earthquake. Experimental work is underway at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) as part of an Advanced Queensland AT however, test results support a design load no greater than 5.47 kN/m. Other testing of full-scale shear walls at QUT, with small sample sizes, has identified two issues of concern. Firstly, 4mm thick hardwood plywood braced walls experience shear buckling at low loads resulting in failure well below the design load. Secondly, the common construction practice of using a double-stud at the interface between two adjacent sheets of bracing results in the concentration of shear forces in the top and bottom plates near the double studs, reduced global stiffness and possibly reduced capacity. The second phase of our research program is to develop and test prototypes specifically for mid-rise applications. In this paper, we present some prototypes which are scheduled for testing in the near term. We hope to present some preliminary results in our presentation at ASEC 2020. We invite our peers at the conference to provide comment and guidance on our work.