Investigating the deflection due to hold-down systems in light frame wood shear walls

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Focusing on the behaviour of wood shear walls has been an interest to researchers for many years. However, the focus has mainly been on establishing the capacity of the walls provided different construction detailing. For this purpose including a hold-down to resist the overturning moment on the wall and ensuring that the hold down does not fail before the wall is typically sufficient. Where research has lacked is in establishing a clear understanding of how the wall deflect when load is applied to it, especially when different hold-down devices are used. The proposed project aims to develop analysis and design methods to calculate the hold-down deflection characteristics. This will lead to a more optimized and safer design. Tests will be conducted at University of Ottawa Structural lab with a setup built specifically to test wood shearwall systems. The testing will include varying levels of wall aspect ratio, number of storeys and effect of gravity loads. Analytical and numerical (Finite element) models will be developed and validated using the experimental results. Better understanding of behaviour of connectors and shear wall elements under lateral load brings many benefits to Simpson Strong-Tie by opening new horizons in designing and developing more efficient connectors while meeting the structural needs. More research on connectors' behaviour will lead to more development, which expands the market, and provides more job opportunities, and as a result increases the company's overall profit