Experimental study on traditional wooden shear walls in Taiwan

The shear walls in timber structures are usually used for partitions and to resist the horizontal force applied on a timber structure. The traditional wooden shear walls in Taiwan are usually assembled by several vertical unit panels connected by bamboo nails. This paper attempts to address the factors that affect the shear resistance of traditional wooden shear wall in Taiwan. A total of 15 specimens were fabricated for testing under monotonic loading. In order to clarify the effect of the unit panels and wooden shear walls dimensions, the specimens consist of several vertical unit panels infilled within timber frames with four connections hinged. The theoretical model was further proposed to compare with the experimental data and obtained good agreement, which was used for parametric study. This study compares the geometries of unit panels, numbers of bamboo.