Testing and Modeling of Wood–Masonry Hybrid Wall Assembly

Abstract

Reinforced concrete or masonry cores commonly exist in multistory light wood frame buildings (LWFBs) as elevator shafts and stairwells. These cores are often not accounted for in structural design as part of the lateral load resisting system in combination with the light wood frame subsystem due to the uncertainty regarding material compatibility. In this paper, the interaction between the wood frame and masonry walls in a hybrid lateral load resisting wall system was investigated using a two-dimensional numerical model. Two two-story hybrid wood-masonry walls as well as individual wall subsystems and connections were tested experimentally under reversed cyclic loading to provide confidence in the ability of the numerical model to predict the lateral load response of the hybrid wall systems. From the experimental results it was noted that the bolted connections first failed when the load was applied to the wood frame in the hybrid system, while masonry walls first failed when the load was applied to the masonry wall. The results show that as displacement increases, the load shared by the wood subsystem was reduced due to progressive softening of wood shear wall specimens. When the load was applied to the wood frame subsystem the connections did contribute to the energy dissipation of the whole hybrid wall system. When the load was applied to the stiffer masonry wall, the energy dissipation by the connections can be ignored.