Joint Research Report: Evaluation of Force Transfer Around Openings - Experimental and Analytical Studies

Force transfer around openings (FTAO) is one of the major design methods concerning wood structural panel sheathed shear walls with openings. Excellent examples of this design method targeted to practitioners have been developed by a number of sources; however, very little test data are available to confirm design assumptions.

This publication is designed for: engineers, architects, designers

This report contains research results on FTAO from a joint study undertaken by APA – The Engineered Wood Association, the USDA Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) and the University of British Columbia (UBC). This study was conducted in two parts: Part 1 was an experimental study conducted at the APA research facilities and Part 2 was a model analysis performed by UBC based on the experimental study plan from Part 1. Drag strut, cantilever beam and Diekmann techniques were examined in this study.

Key sections include:

• Part 1: Full-scale shear wall tests for force transfer around openings

  • Test plan, results, summary and conclusion

  • Cyclic tests, global wall data

  • Monotonic tests, global wall data

  • Hold-down forces

  • Anchor bolt forces

  • Strap forces around openings

  • Photos

• Part 2: Modeling force transfer around shear wall openings

  • Wall 2D – shear wall model

  • Model input

  • Modeling results

  • Summary and discussions