Seismic performance assessment of a timber log house

Abstract

The current work presents a full scale shaking table test conducted on a twostoreyed timber log house, designed according to the state of the art on timber engineering. The test was performed within the framework of the SERIES Project “Multi-storey timber buildings” at LNEC, Lisbon, Portugal. Several tests and studies have been carried out by the University of Minho to characterize the behavior of the different components (logs, walls, slabs, connections, etc.) of log houses in the past few years for the European Technical Approval (ETA) of this construction system. The main results of the shaking table test are presented along with the preliminary analysis of the overall behavior of the log house. The analysis was carried out based on the shaking table tests and on a numerical model developed to estimate the main seismic parameters using the data obtained from the different individual studies on each component of the construction system performed within the framework of the ETA.