Nonlinear Analysis of a 10-Story Building Shake Table Specimen with Mass Timber Rocking Walls

Abstract

Mass timber buildings are becoming increasingly popular in the United States and around the world as they offer benefits such as fast construction, a desirable aesthetic, and the use of a sustainable building material. Using a post-tensioned mass timber rocking wall lateral system makes the construction of fully timber-based tall buildings in high seismic areas feasible and can help buildings achieve seismic performance objectives beyond those required by current building codes. This paper presents the three-dimensional nonlinear OpenSees numerical model used for the performance-based design of a full-scale 10-story mass timber building with a post-tensioned mass timber rocking wall lateral system for dynamic shake table testing. Model results demonstrate that the behavior of the building meets performance targets utilized in design processes similar to what is required for tall buildings in urban areas in the United States. The numerical model's ability to replicate shake table test results provides confidence that future projects which aim to use post-tensioned mass timber rocking walls in tall buildings can use this robust modeling method to reliably predict seismic performance. © 2025 This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license,.