Experimental Study On The Performance Of Mid-ply Shear Wall

In this thesis,8 mid-ply shear walls and 2 standard shear walls were tested under static and reversed cyclic loadings.Based on the test results,parameters such as lateral load capacity,stiffness,ultimate displacement,energy dissipation and ductility coefficient were determined.The mid-ply shear wall uses the same wall framing members and wood-based sheathing as those used in standard wood shear wall,but rearranged in in a way that nails connecting the framing members and wood-based sheathing work in double shear.The test results show that the mid-ply shear wall has twice the lateral load-carrying capacity and four times the energy dissipation of a comparable standard shear wall.The results indicated that the panel thickness does not have a great influence on the lateral load-carrying capacity.For mid-ply shear wall with double rows of nails,the lateral load-carrying capacity is about 30% greater than that of mid-ply shear wall with single row of nails.This is because the OSB panel failed before the nail joints along the panel edges reached their capacities.Due to the high cost for shear wall tests,additional nailed joint tests were conducted to predict the lateral load-carrying capacity of mid-ply shear wall with different types of panels and thickness.A total of 60 double shear nailed joints were tested.The test results show that with thick panel,the nailed joint capacity increased by approximately 10%.This finding indicates that panel thickness does not have great impact on joint capacity.Different panel types have a greater impact on the performance of the nailed joints.The test results show that nailed joints made of North America OSB panel have the best performance.Based on the test results of nailed joints and the available theoretical models,comparison was made between the prediction and the test results of mid-ply shear walls.It was found that the plastic model can reasonably predict the lateral load-carrying capacity of mid-ply shear wall.The four-term deflection equation can also reasonably predict the load-displacement of mid-ply shear wall when the applied lateral load is small.With the increase of the applied lateral load,the predicted deflection is less than the deflection of the mi-ply shear wall test.