Full-Scale Shake Table Test to Expand Opportunities for Canadian Wood Use in Korea

By: Tai Jeong

Country Director, Canada Wood Korea

A two-story light wood frame building was violently shaken on a shake table facility at Seismic Research and Test Centre of Pusan National University in South Korea on February 2022. Testing was arranged by Chungnam National University. As part of Canada Wood’s initiative to revise the “Building Code for the Small Scale Building Code-Timber Structure” (SSBC-TS), the aim of the testing was to generate data for the code revision  by offering more shearwall designs for exterior, interior and narrow wall configurations.

The testing will provide data corroboration to supplement computer-based modelling predicting how low-rise wood buildings perform with seismic reinforcement. The test report is expected to be released by June 2022. All the structural lumber and sheathing material used to build these specimens was imported from Canada and comply with KS F 3020(structural lumber) and KS F 2089(structural OSB) standards.

Shake table test video taken by CWK staff