Grant: Alliance Grants

Recent development in construction codes and standards have driven the need to better understand the performance of wood shearwalls with respect to heightened seismic loads especially for multi-storey wood structures. The proposed project is conducted in collaboration with the Canadian Wood Council as the industrial partner, and it aims to address the impact of extending the light-frame wood shearwalls to taller buildings especially as it pertains to wall deformation. The project will focus on experimental testing and analytical development to provide engineers with improved understanding of the shearwall behaviours, especially in high seismic regions. New design rules backed by experimental and computational research on the deflection of shearwalls has potential to reduce the current practice of over-designing that introduces additional costs and affects the competitiveness of Canada's forest products industry.