Quasi-Static Testing of Seismically Enhanced Wood Light-Frame Room Specimen with Exterior Wall Conditions

A 7 ft (2.13 m) x 16 ft (4.88 m) x 12 ft (3.66 m) wood light-frame room specimen was built and quasi-statically tested. The specimen was seismically enhanced by applying off-the-shelf construction adhesive along with drywall screws between the interface of the gypsum wallboard and the wood studs. In addition to the adhesive, the room was installed using hold-downs and shear bolts secured to a frame bolted on the Hybrid Simulation Platform (HSP) at UC Berkeley's Richmond Laboratory.The room was configured to have parapet walls above the long walls to represent the walls along the exterior perimeter of a house. The gypsum panels were oriented vertically on the exterior of the long walls and horizontally on the inside as well as the exterior of the short walls. The HSP was used to perform a quasi-static test using a modified version of the CUREE loading protocol. The modifications incorporated smaller and larger drifts to the protocol.