Full-scale experiment on traditional timber frames of Taiwan

Many traditional timber structures were destroyed by the major earthquakes. Since 2003, a multi-year project has been initiated to investigate the structural performance of these traditional timber structures. The project started with an extensive field survey, the results were used as fundamental data for the following experiments. The results of the field survey showed that mud and wood are the main materials to infill the timber frames. To compare the structural performance of traditional timber frames in which the difference materials are selected as a in-filled shear wall, full scale experiments were conducted. The experimental results show that the timber frame in-filled with timber shear walls shows better horizontal force resistance than that in-filled with mud shear walls. However, the timber frame in-filled with mud shear wall has slower stiffness degradation comparable. In the study, the static push-over analyses were also carried out to analyze the performance of these timber structures with good agreements.