Experimental And Theoretical Study On Seismic Behavior Of Traditional Timber Structures

Ancient timber architecture is important in Chinese traditional culture. To some degree, they represent the development level of science and technology in ancient China. And Chinese ancient timber architecture offers a stunning blend of history, art and scientific characteristics. The mortise-tenon joint is a great ancient architectural invention which contributes to better seismic behavior. Beams and columns of the historic timber structural buildings are linked by mortise and tenon joints, which has already been used three and a half thousand years ago. However, there are many difficulties and some limit conditions in the scientific research of ancient architecture, because of special structural materials and tectonic modes of ancient architecture, which makes that data of scientific research of ancient architecture is less than those of historical and artistic research of ancient architecture.Summarizing the study actualities about the ancient timber architecture around the world, the structural integrity of the ancient timber architecture and the mechanical properties of wood are introduced. Based on Fen-Xin-Dou palace built in Song Dynasty, three scaled model with the ratio of 1:4 are built. In this paper, low cyclic loading test method is employed to study on the properties of the model. Through the analysis of experiment results, the P-Δhysteretic loops, skeleton curve, energy dissipation capacity and ductility coefficient of Double-span timber structure are obtained. By analyzing the M-θskeleton curve and stiffness degradation of the mortise-tenon joints, the double-line model between connectional moment and relative angle in joints is obtained.Based on the hybrid element and D-value method, the relations between connectional moment and relative angle in semi-rigid joints are studied in depth. The calculation method of the relative angle in joints is presented. The relationship between lateral displacement and connectional flexibility in joints, and the lateral force resisting rigidity of the structure are also derived.Nonlinearity is introduced in the contact analysis by finite element software ANSYS to precisely simulate the real condition. By comparing with the results of low cyclic loading test, good agreements can be observed. Therefore the results from analysis by finite element software ANSYS can be used safely.