Reliability-based Seismic Design of Wood Shear Walls

This paper reports on work, conducted under Task 1.5.3 (Reliability Studies) of the CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project, with the objective of developing a risk-based methodology for seismic design of shear walls. Along with diaphragms, shear walls are primary lateral force resisting components in woodframe structures. The methodology developed herein is based on reliability principles as well as emerging performance-based concepts for seismic design. The specific subobjectives of Task 1.5.3 were: (1) to conduct a sequence of sensitivity studies to evaluate the contributions of various sources of uncertainty to shear wall performance as predicted using the CASHEW program (developed in another task of the project); (2) to evaluate the variabilities in, and thereby statistically characterize, the peak response obtained using a suite of ordinary ground motion records taken to characterize the seismic hazard in southern California; and (3) to develop a risk-based procedure for performance-based design of wood shear walls. Design charts developed using this procedure could be used to determine limits on the seismic weight to ensure target nonexceedence probabilities for the different performance (drift) levels.