Mechanical behaviour of connections between wood framed shear walls and foundations under monotonic and cyclic load

Light timber structures have always been considered performing well during earthquakes, because of the high ratio between strength and mass. In platform frame constructions the task of resisting to the horizontal forces (wind, earthquake) is entirely left to the shear walls. The mechanical characterization of connections between the wall panels and the foundation and between the wall panels at different storeys is extremely important in order to investigate the global response of multi-storey buildings subjected to lateral loads. To this purpose different types of commercial or ad hoc designed connections system were experimentally investigated by means of monotonic and cyclic tests, in order to derive their stiffness and strength parameters. The experimental results confirmed the good mechanical behaviour of the proposed systems compared to the systems commonly adopted in practice. A simple engineering model is proposed to describe the force transmission mechanism between the connection elements.