In this master’s thesis, we analyzed the influence of different calculation methods on the distribution of horizontal (shear) forces among walls in timber panel construction. A comparative analysis of four methods was carried out: two simplified methods based on horizontal forces distribution (without and with consideration of building eccentricity), while the reference (“accurate”) results were obtained based on two advanced methods using modal analysis implemented in the Tower and TimberTech Buildings software. The study focused on a timber single-family house with two stories (ground floor and one upper floor (P+1)), characterized by significant irregularity in both plan and elevation. Such geometric layouts are increasingly common in modern timber residential construction. Due to this irregularity, large deviations typically occur between the centers of mass and rigidity, resulting in increased torsional effects under seismic loading and consequently additional shear stresses on individual wall elements. The results demonstrated that torsion has a significant impact even in low-rise buildings (P+1), particularly when large offsets exist between the centers of mass and and rigidity. The horizontal force method without consideration of eccentricity (and thus without torsional effects) systematically underestimates wall loads and is therefore unsuitable for such structures. Even the method that accounts for eccentricity underestimated shear forces in certain cases, especially for longer walls. A comparison between the two numerical models showed that the differences in shear force magnitudes between between Tower and TimberTech Buildings results were generally within 20%, except for walls excluded by TimberTech Buildings due to discontinuous support conditions. It was also shown that the use of TimberTech Buildings, a program specifically designed for timber structures, is both time-efficient and accurate. The analysis of fastener utilization showed that, for the examined building, the utilization is low due to conservative design solutions. It was found that, in accordance with advanced methods, the utilization of fasteners is up to approximately 2.6 times higher compared to the horizontal force method without considering eccentricity. All the The findings together confirm that for structures irregular in height and plan, the use of modal analysis is essential, as also required by the standard SIST EN 1998-1.
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