Seismic behaviour of historic timber-frame buildings in the Italian Dolomites

The historical building heritage in the Italian Dolomites comprehends traditional timber-frame constructions. This construction technique is the topic of this paper. Analysing the structure of the buildings in question and hence understanding their seismic performance is the main objective. The methods used to achieve this aim included breaking down the building into its different elementary parts in order to examine its horizontal and vertical load-bearing elements. Two most common types of wooden frames are considered for the purpose of the present study (with three different infill configurations: wooden branches and mortar, bricks and stones). The experimental part comprised quasi-static cyclic tests on wall specimens carried out to evaluate the lateral load resistance, the ductility and the capacity of energy dissipation of the three panel configurations. These results were then used for the theoretical part aiming to establish a numerical model which includes a pinching hysteresis model and is fitted to the cyclic test data. The numerical analyses were performed for several historical earthquakes. For each earthquake, the Peak Ground Acceleration (PGAu) producing the “near collapse” ultimate state of this building type has been determined. Having these results, a realistic statement can be given regarding the seismic performance of these traditional timber-frame buildings.