Shaking table tests on a three-storey timber building

Abstract

This paper reports on a shaking table test conducted on a timber-framed building sheathed with oriented strand board within the framework of the European Series project at the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering in Lisbon, Portugal. The test structure was a full-scale, three-storey, 7 m × 5 m plan building. The aim of the tests was to assess the integrity of the structural members and the non-structural components during a seismic event. The structural design was carried out in accordance with European standards. The input signals comprised ‘accelerograms’, which were scaled versions of those recorded during the Montenegro (1979) and Tohoku (2011) earthquakes. The outcome of the tests showed excellent seismic behaviour, as demonstrated by the fact that the structure frequency did not change until the last step of the procedure. Moreover, after 17 simulations, no visible damage was detected.