CYCLIC BEHAVIOR OF TIMBER-STEEL HYBRID SHEAR WALLS

Timber-steel hybrid structures provide a viable solution to strengthen lateral load resisting systems in multi-storey timber residential buildings. This paper investigated cyclic behaviour of one type of timber-steel hybrid shear walls consisting of steel moment resisting frames and plywood infill walls. A detailed finite element model was developed to model the hybrid wall behavior under cyclic loading. The hysteretic parameters of critical connection elements were calibrated by experimental testing results. A parametric study was further conducted to investigate the effect of nail size and plywood thickness on the hybrid wall behavior. Overall, the hybridization of the steel moment frame and the plywood infill walls can provide significantly better performance compared with conventional plywood shear walls. And a combination of 3.15x75mm nails with 17mm thick plywood in the infill wall seems to provide the optimal hybrid wall performance