Award Abstract # 1635156
Collaborative Research: A Resilience-based Seismic Design Methodology for Tall Wood Buildings

NSF Org: CMMI
Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation
Recipient: WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY
Initial Amendment Date: July 26, 2016
Latest Amendment Date: July 26, 2016
Award Number: 1635156
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Joy Pauschke
jpauschk@nsf.gov
 (703)292-7024
CMMI
 Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation
ENG
 Directorate for Engineering
Start Date: September 1, 2016
End Date: August 31, 2020 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $180,000.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $180,000.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2016 = $180,000.00
History of Investigator:
  • James Dolan (Principal Investigator)
    jddolan@wsu.edu
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Washington State University
240 FRENCH ADMINISTRATION BLDG
PULLMAN
WA  US  99164-0001
(509)335-9661
Sponsor Congressional District: 05
Primary Place of Performance: Washington State University
WA  US  99164-3140
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
05
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): XRJSGX384TD6
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): Engineering for Natural Hazard,
Special Initiatives
Primary Program Source: 01001617DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 036E, 039E, 040E, 043E, 1057, 1576, CVIS
Program Element Code(s): 014Y00, 164200
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.041

ABSTRACT

As the U.S. population continues to grow in urban communities, the demand for tall residential and mixed-use buildings in the range of eight to twenty stories continues to increase. Buildings in this height range are commonly built using concrete or steel. A recent new timber structural innovation, known as cross laminated timber (CLT), was developed in western Europe and is now being implemented around the world as a sustainable and low carbon-footprint alternative to conventional structural materials for tall buildings. However, an accepted and validated design method for tall CLT buildings to resist earthquakes has not yet been developed, and therefore construction of these tall wood buildings in the United States has been limited. This research will break this barrier by investigating a seismic design methodology for resilient tall wood buildings that can be immediately re-occupied following a design level earthquake and quickly repaired (compared to current building systems) after a large earthquake. Using the seismic design methodology developed in this project, the research team will work with practitioners across the engineering and architectural communities to design, build, and validate the performance of a ten-story wood building by conducting full-scale sub-assembly system testing at the National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) experimental facility at Lehigh University, followed by full-scale tests at the NSF-supported NHERI outdoor shake table at the University of California at San Diego. This research will enable a new sustainable construction practice that is also cost-competitive, thereby increasing demands for engineered wood production, providing added value for forest resources, and enhancing job growth in the construction and forestry sectors. As part of the research, the experimental programs will serve to provide outreach to the public and stakeholders on issues related to seismic hazard mitigation, modern timber engineering, and resilient building concepts.

The goal of this research is to investigate and validate a seismic design methodology for tall wood buildings that incorporates high performance structural and non-structural systems. The methodology will quantitatively account for building resilience. This will be accomplished through a series of research tasks planned over a four-year period. These tasks will include mechanistic modeling of tall wood buildings with several variants of post-tensioned rocking CLT wall systems, fragility modeling of structural and non-structural building components that affect resilience, full-scale bi-directional testing of building sub-assembly systems, development of a resilience-based seismic design methodology, and finally a series of full-scale shake table tests of a ten-story CLT building specimen to validate the investigated design. The structural systems investigated will include post-tensioned CLT rocking walls in both monolithic and segmental rocking configurations. Implementing segmental rocking walls in a full building system will be a transformative concept that has yet to be realized physically. The rocking wall systems will be investigated under the context of holistic building behavior, including gravity systems and non-structural components. The research team will further push the boundary of existing performance-based seismic design by developing a design procedure that explicitly considers the time needed for the building to resume functionality after an earthquake. With the large-scale testing capacity provided by the NHERI experimental facilities, the design methodology will be experimentally validated, which will at the same time generate a landmark data set for tall wood buildings under dynamic loading that will be available to the broader research and practitioner community through the NHERI DesignSafe-ci.org Data Depot. The project will facilitate implementation of this new structural archetype by interfacing closely with practitioners in the Pacific Northwest interested in tall CLT buildings as a cost-competitive design option. Graduate and undergraduate students, including community college students, will actively participate in this research and gain valuable knowledge and experience, which will prepare them to become leaders in sustainable building practices using modern engineered wood materials.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Pei, S. and Dolan, J. and Zimmerman, R. and McDonnell, E. and Line, p. and Popovski, P. "From Testing to Codification: Post-tensioned Cross Laminated Timber Rocking Walls" Proceedings of the International Network for Timber Engineering Research (INTER) , 2019 https://doi.org/ Citation Details
Wilson, A. and Motter, C. and Phillips, A. and Dolan, J. "Seismic Response of Post-Tensioned Cross-Laminated Timber Rocking Wall Buildings" Journal of structural engineering , v.146 , 2020 https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X.0002673 Citation Details

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

This project resulted in developing the experimental data reuired to begin to model mass timber rocking shear walls as a lateral force resisting system. The data allowed the design and analysis process for the test of a 2-story proof of concept test that occured on the earthquake table at the University of California at San Diego and the contiued analysis and design of the upcoming 10-story test specimen to be tested at the same site in early 2022.  

Finally, a new damper that is easily replaceable was invented in a parallel project using the data from this testing for the initial analysis in the design and the subsequent testing has reaulted in a patent being awarded.

The results of the testing conducted in this award, which is a part of a larger project has also spawned additional investigations funded by the USDA and private industry to further investigate the bariers and incentives for adopting this building system in Canada, the Pacific NorthWest, and Chile.  The data has also been used by projects for the USDA Forest Service to estimate the volume of lumber that would be required if this building system were to be widely adopted, which showed that the current system is adequate to supply the demand. This technique is now being used by the Chilean government to conduct an analysis of their forest products industry to see if the potential demand can be fulfilled with the current production rates in their domestic market.

The results have been widely disemiated through journal articles and conference presentations to where researchers in Japan, New Zealand, and Chile are now extending the work.


Last Modified: 05/19/2021
Modified by: James D Dolan

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