Experimental behaviour of stud connected wooden floors undergoing seismic action

In-plane shear strengthening of wooden floors by placing of a wooden diaphragm on top of an existing floor is addressed in this paper. The shear resisting diaphragm is obtained by means of horizontal steel studs embedded alongside the lateral interface of neighboring pinewood boards. This technique might be suitable for the restoration of ancient buildings, where a “dry technique” would be preferable. Experiments were carried out on full-scale wooden floor specimens undergoing cyclic shear loads. The strengthened floor showed a remarkable shear stiffness, strength, and ductility, but a reduced capacity of dissipating energy. A simplified analytical model, based on an existing model for concrete-wood connection with steel studs, was extended to the wood-wood connection and adopted to predict the structural behavior of the strengthened wooden floor. The theoretical results are in good agreement with the experimental data.