Validation of Proposed Analytical Model and Design Procedures for Multi-Panel CLT Shearwalls through Experimental Investigation

Multi-panel CLT shearwalls are expected to provide more flexibility and energy dissipation than single-panel walls, mainly due to the contribution of the vertical joints between panels. Despite several analytical models and design approaches being proposed in the literature, timber design standards provide limited guidelines on the lateral and capacity-based design approaches for CLT shearwalls. This shortcoming is mainly due to inadequate experimental results on multi-panel CLT shearwalls to help validate the developed equations and substantiate the proposed kinematic modes and shearwall behaviour. This study investigates the lateral behaviour of CLT shearwalls by carrying out two full-scale testing on shearwalls consisting of three panels and subjected to monotonic lateral load. The experimental results were used to validate results obtained from proposed analytical expressions and numerical models. Connection-level monotonic tests were also carried out on hold-down and panel-to-panel joints to be used as the input for the analytical expressions and numerical models. Preliminary results from two shearwalls tests are presented in this paper and comparisons to the numerical models show a reasonable match.