Investigating the behaviour of typical and designed wall-to-floor connections in light-frame wood stud wall structures subjected to blast loading

Abstract

The performance of light-frame wood stud walls under simulated blast loading has so far been limited to investigating the behaviour of structural elements with idealized boundary conditions. The current study investigates, experimentally and analytically, whether walls with prescriptive connection detailing for low and high seismic and wind regions are capable of resisting blast loadings such that the walls’ ultimate capacity can be reached. The study also investigates the behaviour of different connections with various design capacity levels to develop failure in the stud wall system rather than in the connection. A total of ten full-scale walls with different boundary conditions were tested dynamically. The results showed that typical prescriptive connection detailing did not perform adequately. Designed connections performed well, but the findings show that basing the connection design solely on capacity may be inadequate. Single degree-of-freedom modelling may only be utilized if damage in the connections is limited.