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2025 - 2026
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Seismic Eng.

Ihsan Engin Bal

Anastasios Sextos

Stathis Bousias

Eleni Smyrou

Oh-Sung Kwon

Roberto Tomasi

+6 more

GEM Taxonomy string

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2025 - 2026
S
Seismic Eng.

GEM Taxonomy string

W/LWAL/HHT:15/FOSSL

Novel hybrid testing of a geographically distributed multi-storey timber structure

HYSTERESIS

SOIL - STRUCTURE INTERACTION
WOOD STRUCTURES
SEISMIC ISOLATION/ DISSIPATIVE DEVICES

Dataset Description

The dataset comprises results of the hybrid simulation of a multi-storey timber structure. The structure, including its foundation and part of supporting soil, is considered under horizontal

loading conditions, such as wind and earthquakes. The aim is to provide experimental evidence especially around fundamental topics such as the hysteretic energy damping characteristics, deformation capacity and relation of these two to the soil-structure-interaction (SSI) phenomenon. As the study of such phenomena should preferably be carried out at large scale, it was substructured into three sub-structures - two of them represented highly-onlinearly responding parts of the structure (the soil foundation and energy dissipating devices) and, thus, were physically tested at Univeresity of Bristol SoFSS Sol-pit facility and Structures Laboratory of the University of Patras, respectively. The rest of the structure (some dampers an rest structural system) was simulated numerically at Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen. The hybrid simulaton plartform UT-SIM of the University of Toronto was employed (modified and extended approprately) for the specific test. The test was performed at increasing levels of seismic excitation and concluded with a monotonic ("pushover"-type) test to failure.

Timber structures
soil-structure interaction
energy dissipation devices
hybrid simulation
structured testing

Specimens Description File

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Specimens

1. Sub-structured Frame Specimen

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The prototype structure is a five-storey hybrid timber building comprising six parallel glulam post-and-beam frames in each orthogonal direction. The test specimen is one of the six frames, composed of a CLT shear wall element at the center of the frame and two columns on the sides of the wall per floor. The CLT wall is connected to a reinforced concrete footing through angle-type fasteners and two buckling restrained braces (BRB) providing restoring forces.

The frame is appropriately partitioned to sub-structures for the scope of testing (hybrid simulation): two physical substructures, namely the ground floor part of the CLT wall with its footing and surrounding soil and two (out of ten) of the innovative dampers placed on all floors, were installed at University of Bristol SofSSI facility and Structures Laboratory of the University of Patras, respectively. A third substructure, comprising the rest of the strucrture and eight innovative dampers , was treated numerically at Hanze University. Metadata on the structure, materials employed, excitation signal and loading conditions, are provided in the accompanying files.

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1. Experiment 1: Characterization tests

In this phase of testing three different preparatory actions were taken:

1- Experimental determination of the initial stiffness of the UBRI-SofSSI physical substructures (to be used in the numerical calculations),

2- Characterization tests on the dampers to determine the initial stiffness

3- Characterization tests on the custom-made BRBs to be intalled on the CLT shear wall. The data file provided regards uniaxial testing of BRBs unders cyclic loading conditions (physical quantities provided are explained in the file). NOTE: the dataset regards the response of custom-made dampers tailored to the hybrid test and do not represent the response of commercially available products.

The results are summarizerd in the report provided

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Instrumentation

1_ For determining the initial stiffness of the specimen low level displacements were applied and the respective forces measured. The equipment used is that of the actual tests - see figure "UBRI-SofSSI_Control scheme.pdf".

2_ Characterization of the sand dampers was perfomed on the setup used for the actual hybrid simulation and comprised testing of the dampers under a cyclic pattern of displacements - several levels of peak displacement were applied and the data were also used for calibrating the numerical model to be used for the (8) numerical substructues in hybrid simulation (see also the report on characterization tests).

3_ The BRBs were tested under a standardized pattern of cyclic displacements. Displacement along the axis of the BRB as well as the reacting force were measured and provided.

2. Experiment 2: Test at 30% excitation level (0.07g)

Thes structure was subjected to 30% of the excitation signal ("GM_30pct.txt") represented by the Kalamata 1986 earthquake record ("Kalamata_EQ_Original.txt"). The record was chropped in duration to accommodate the time restrcitions imposed by hybrid simulation total test duration.

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Instrumentation

The instrumentation scheme for the physical substructures at UBristol SofSSI

3. Experiment 3: Test at 100% excitation level (0.22g)

The record of Kalamata 1986 earthquake was employed to its full size (no scaling) in this experiment. The test variables exchanged among all substructures are provided as a single file ("Comm_log_8090."), for clarity. It is accompanied by a file ("Comm_Log_Column_Definitions.xlsx") defining which physical mearument is represented by each column in the communication log.

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Instrumentation

File "Hysteresis_International_100p_Instrumentation_README.txt" provides description and location of measurement for the parameters recorded at the UBri-SofSSI substructure - a pictorial representaion of the location of the sensors is shown in "Hysteresis_Bristol_Substructure_Sensor_Configuration.jpg". A separate similar file ("Hysteresis_Bristol_Substructure_Vision_Tracking_Marker_Configuration.jpg") shows the position of markers of a second set of acquisition employing vision tracking markers positioned at several locations.

4. Experiment 4: Test to failure

In this experiment the structure was subjected to a "pushover-type" test considering a gradually increasing displacement monotonically applied to the top floor of the structure - the loading continued until reaching an advanced level of nonlinearity in the substructures approaching ultimate conditions.

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Instrumentation

Instrumentation metadata are identical to those of the previous experiment..

Publications- DOIs

Publication/Metadata DOIs

DOI

10.1007/978-3-031-98893-6_17

Dataset in Public Repository

DOI

PRELIMINARY

Publication Date

8 Jul 2026, 06:38

Project Metadata

Rights

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

CC BY 4.0

CC BY 4.0

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