Modal-Displacement Based Design: Procedural aspects and application to a multi-storey Blockhaus structure

Under earthquake excitations, buildings undergo different levels of drift that can be associated with the damage both of structural and non-structural elements as well as with the expected losses. Therefore, in the Modal-DBD, identifying the interstory drift as a design criterion allows the designer to control the damage mechanism and the expected economic losses due to an earthquake. The extension to the design of timber buildings focused mainly on three DBD methods: DDBD, Modal-DBD and N2-DBD. The proposed Modal-DBD procedure is specifically designed for multi-storey wood structures with the aim of solving the drawbacks of current force-based procedures. In this work, innovation lies in the application of this methodology to a multi-storey timber building constructed using the Blockhaus technology. The backbone parameters have been obtained for each shearwall by FE analysis carried on with the software ABAQUS on the entire log-wall. Foundamental mechanisms for Blockhaus structure such as friction between logs, the presence of small gaps in corner joints and vertical compressive loads have been accounted in the solid FE model.