Experimental study of traditional Chuan-dou frames infilled with wood panels under in-plane cyclic load

Abstract The Chuan-dou type of structure is a traditional architecture style that widely exists in rural China, with a large amount of its partition using wood as a raw material. To study the seismic behavior of Chuan-dou frames infilled with wood panels, four full-scaled single-story specimens have been designed and put through the quasi-static test. The failure modes, the hysteretic and envelop curves, the stiffness and strength degradation, the energy dissipation , and the equivalent viscous damping ratio(EDVR) have been investigated. The experimental results show that the wood panel infills greatly improved the load-bearing capacity and lateral stiffness of the wood frames. The energy dissipated in each cycle and accumulated in the whole process suggested that the compression and friction of the wood panel played an important role. All specimens presented good energy dissipation efficiency.