Seismic Testing of a Full-Scale Mid-Rise Building: The NEESWood Capstone Test

Keywords: NEESWood Capstone Test.  Seismic performance.  Full-scale tests.  Mid-rise structures.  Woodframe structures.  Shaking table tests.  Residential structures.  Interstory drifts.  Damage.  Performance-based designs.  Light-frame structures.

Abstract: This report presents the results of a shake table testing program of a full-scale mid-rise light-frame wood apartment building tested at the world’s largest shake table in Miki, Japan as part of the NEESWood project funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.  The six-story building (with an additional steel moment frame story at bottom) consisted of 1,350 square meters of living space and had twenty-three apartment units; approximately half one-bedroom units and half two-bedroom units.  The building was found to perform excellently with little damage even following the 2,500-year event for Los Angeles, CA earthquake.  The interstory drift was well controlled thus validating the effectiveness of the performance-based design philosophy developed in the NEESWood project.