Chapter 4: Lateral design of cross-laminated timber buildings

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) is an innovative wood product that was developed approximately two decades ago in Europe and has since been gaining in popularity. Based on the experience of European researchers and designers, it is believed that CLT can provide the U.S. market the opportunity to build mid- and high-rise wood buildings. This Chapter presents a summary of past research and state-of-the-art understanding of the seismic behavior of CLT. As a new structural system to the United States, the design of CLT for seismic applications is expected to be made through alternative method provisions of the building codes. Efforts to develop seismic design coefficients for use in the equivalent lateral force procedures in the United States are underway. Nonlinear numerical modeling of CLT is presented and used to provide an indication of the effect of designing with different R-factors. Using nominal CLT wall capacity values derived from isolated wall tests, the illustrative example showed that an R-factor of approximately 2 can result in a low probability of collapse (less than 10 percent) at MCE intensity.