Seismic elastic analysis of light timber-frame multi-storey buildings: Proposal of an iterative approach

• The behaviour of full-scale light-frame timber building is investigated.
• A method to evaluate the stiffness matrix of light-frame timber building is proposed.
• Three methods for the application of the modal response spectrum analysis are presented.

This paper deals with the static and dynamic seismic analysis of light timber-frame buildings. Through the use of the UNITN-model proposed in a previous work, the study is here extended to full-scale buildings. An iterative procedure to properly distribute a horizontal load to the shear-walls, considering the coupled action of the vertical-load and the hold-downs state, is developed; three methods for the application of the response spectrum analysis are proposed as well. These methods may be used to predict the seismic-behaviour and to design non-regular timber shear-walls buildings. A numerical example illustrates the application of the procedures.