2c-0228 The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, 17WCEE

Sendai, Japan - September 13th to 18th 2020

SEISMIC PERFORMANCE OF HIGH-RISE WOOD-CONCRETE HYBRID

BUILDING

Y. Pan(1), K. Kaushik(2), M. Shahnewaz(3), T. Tannert(4), C.E. Ventura(5)

(1) Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Northern British Columbia and University of British Columbia, ypan@civil.ubc.ca
(2) Structural Engineer, Thomas Leung Structural Engineering, kuldeepalbert@gmail.com
(3) Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Northern British Columbia Prince George, md.shahnewaz@unbc.ca
(4) Associate Professor, Wood Engineering, University of Northern British Columbia, thomas.tannert@unbc.ca
(5) Professor, Civil Engineering, University of British Columbia, ventura@civil.ubc.ca

Abstract
Wood structures are the most prevalent construction type for residential low-rise in North America. However, owing to
fire regulations and the lack of knowledge of the seismic performance of taller wood buildings, they are mostly limited
to six stories in height. To meet the urban housing demand while implementing more sustainable construction practices,
a novel hybrid wood-concrete system has been developed for high-rise buildings. The concept is to substitute two out of
every three flat slabs in a coupled core wall concrete building with modular wood frame structures to form the
intermediate floors. This approach reduces the seismic demand with a lower building weight, accelerates the
construction process and reduces the building’s carbon footprint. For the seismicity of Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada, a 30-storey height coupled core wall concrete building and a hybrid building were designed according to the
2015 National Building Code of Canada. Detailed three-dimensional finite element models of the two structures were
developed in ETABS and nonlinear time history analyses were performed to evaluate both structures seismic responses.
To accurately reflect the seismic hazard contribution from different earthquake sources (crustal, subcrustal, and
subduction) on the west coast of Canada, ground motion records were selected and scaled to conditional mean spectrum
that was constructed for each source for seismic hazard of 2475 year return period (2% probability of exceedance in 50
years). The results showed that the hybrid system met the code requirements for seismic design, demonstrating the
feasibility of the proposed system for high-rise building construction in seismically active regions of North America.

Keywords: Hybrid System; Conditional Mean Spectrum; Nonlinear Time History Analysis

© The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering - 2c-0228 -

2c-0228 The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, 17WCEE

Sendai, Japan - September 13th to 18th 2020

1. Introduction
It has been reported that in 2030, the world population will reach to 8.6 billion [1]. Considering the fact that
there are about 50% to 70% of those people living in urban cities, there will be more than 3 billion people
who will need new homes in next two decades. To meet this housing demand across the world, high-rise
buildings are required, which are currently made of concrete and steel; materials that have very high carbon
footprint [2, 3]. Wood and engineered wood products, on the other hand, widely used in North America for
low-rise light-frame construction, are suitable materials to solve this problem. Compared to concrete and
steel, wood requires 57% and 26% less energy, emits 81% and 34% less greenhouse gases, and releases 47%
and 24% less pollutants [2].
As a traditional construction material, wood has excellent properties not only in aesthetics and
sustainability, but also in strength and stiffness. Even in earthquakes, light-frame structures have performed
very well because of their high ductility and energy dissipation ability [4]. However, as a combustible
material, there are height limitations for wood structures due to fire safety consideration. For example, in
Canada, until 2019, wood structures cannot exceed six stories [5]; this limit has been increased to 12 stories
in the new building code. Even so, for tall structures, there are also shortcomings in seismic resistance due to
complex load path and ductility provided by numerous nail connections.
To overcome the problems mentioned above, many studies [6-9] have been carried out on wood
construction at the material level, component level, and system level. Among them, hybridization of wood
with other materials has provided an opportunity to cross the high-rise frontier of wood-based systems with
particular potential. The hybridization combines the respective advantages of wood and other materials on
either component or system level [10, 11], which can provide lower seismic weight and forces and reduce the
construction cost and time. Over the past 10 years, multiple wood-based hybrid buildings have been built
worldwide, including the 14-storey “Treet” building in Bergen, Norway [12], and the 18-storey “Brock
Commons” building Vancouver, Canada [13].

2. Seismic Design and Modeling

In this study, a novel wood-concrete hybrid alternative for high-rise buildings, consisting of concrete coupled
core walls with flat slabs and 3-storey tall light-frame wood modules is proposed, as shown in Fig.1. To
investigate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed concept, a 30-storey benchmark pure concrete
building and a hybrid building are designed are designed for the seismicity of Vancouver, Canada, one of the
most seismically active region in Canada according to the 2015 National Building Code of Canada (NBCC)
[5]. Detailed finite element models of both systems are developed and evaluated with nonlinear time history
analyses. To account for the complex regional seismicity in the selected site, a multiple event-based
conditional mean spectrum (CMS) method is adopted to select input ground motions.

Fig. 1 – Idea of the high-rise wood-concrete hybrid building

© The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering - 2c-0228 -

2c-0228 The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, 17WCEE

Sendai, Japan - September 13th to 18th 2020

2.1 Seismic Design of Benchmark Buildings

The benchmark building was a conventional 30-storey coupled core wall concrete building. The building had
flat slab in each floor with dimension of 26 m by 26 m, as shown in Fig.2a. It was 87 m in elevation with a
storey height of 2.9 m. The lateral load resisting system consists of two C-shaped concrete core walls with
coupling beams. The slab was supported by 8 gravity columns with cross-section of 1 m by 1 m.

a) b)

Fig. 2 – Benchmark concrete building: a) plan view, b) shear forces in coupling beams

The dead load consisted of self-weight of concrete, partition and cladding. A 1.9 kPa live load was
considered for roof and floor. The snow load was taken as 1.64 kPa. The shearwall was designed by
considering force modification factors Rd=4.0 and Ro=1.7 for the coupling direction, and Rd=3.5 and Ro=1.6
for the cantilever direction. The coupling beams were designed based on shear force distribution due to both
wind (W) and earthquake load (E), as seen in Fig.2b. A beam depth of 1000 mm was used. This design
resulted in a total seismic mass of 1.71 × 107 kg.
For the hybrid system, two out of every three floors of the benchmark concrete building were replaced
with light-frame wood modules. Same plan dimensions were used for the hybrid system. The light-frame
wall and floor were considered by using Spruce-Pine-Fir (SPF) lumber connected to oriented strand board
(OSB) panels with 3 mm diameter nails spaced at 150 mm. A thicker slab depth of 200 mm was used to
resist gravity loads from three floors. Accordingly, the coupling beams were also redesigned with slightly
different reinforcement arrangement to fulfill the load requirement. The resulting seismic mass of the hybrid
system (1.16 × 107 kg) was 32% lighter than the concrete building.
One key component in designing the hybrid system was the connection between concrete and wood
modules. In this preliminary study, a commonly used bolt connection was considered and tested to
investigate its mechanical performance, as seen in Fig.3. Both monotonic and cyclic loading tests were
performed on Grade 4.8 M14 bolt that was connected to SPF wood [14]. Bending failure in bolt combined
with crushing of wood was the primary failure mechanism observed.

© The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering - 2c-0228 -

2c-0228 The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, 17WCEE

Sendai, Japan - September 13th to 18th 2020

a) b)

Fig. 3 – M14 bolt connection: a) test specimen, b) load-force hysteresis curve

2.1 Development of Numerical Models

Three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear finite element models of both building systems were developed in the
commercial software package ETABS [15]. Core shearwalls were modeled by using a nonlinear wall hinge
(fiber) model. For each wall section with its own cross section and reinforcement arrangement, the axial and
moment hinge properties were determined accordingly. To reduce the computational time, hinges were only
assigned to the first ten floors and elastic thin shell elements were used to model all floors above. This was
determined based on the plastic region. For the coupling beams, a frame hinge model was adopted [16] with
effective stiffness of 0.2EIg (where E is the Young’s Modulus of concrete, and Ig is the moment of inertia of
beam cross section). The frame model consists of elastic beam elements with nonlinear flexural hinges at
each end. To ensure sufficient load and stiffness transfer between the shearwall and the coupling beam, an
embedded beam was modeled with large bending stiffness but only small axial stiffness [17]. For the rest of
structural components (i.e., the slab and gravity columns), elastic elements were used since they were not
designed for lateral load resisting system. A rigid diaphragm assumption was adopted with seismic mass
lumped at the center of each floor.
To properly model the wood modules and their connections with concrete, a hybrid portal frame
(HPF) model was proposed, as shown in Figure 4. HPF includes light-frame wood shearwall that was
connected to concrete component with M14 bolts in two-dimensional. Two diagonal multi-linear plastic link
elements were used to model the wood shearwall. The nonlinear force-displacement relationship was
captured by using a Pivot hysteretic model that accounted for degradation and pinching [15]. The model
parameters were calibrated based on full-scale cyclic test data of a wood shearwall, and the obtained strength
and stiffness values were proportionally scaled based on the actual wall size [15]. A rigid frame with high
modulus of elasticity and both pinned ends were constructed to link the wood shearwall with concrete. The
M14 bolt was modeled with the multi-linear link element and calibrated with test data from Figure 3b.

a) b)

Fig. 4 – HPF model: a) model sketch, b) Pivot hysteretic model

© The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering - 2c-0228 -

2c-0228 The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, 17WCEE

Sendai, Japan - September 13th to 18th 2020

Modal analyses were conducted on the two models. Fig.5 presents the first three mode shapes of both
concrete and hybrid systems. Both systems had translational modes in coupling and cantilever directions as
first two modes, and torsional mode as the third mode. The hybrid system had a fundamental period of 2.24
s, which was shorter than that (2.63 s) from the pure concrete model, due to lower weight and higher
stiffness from the design.

a) b) c)

d) e) f)

Fig. 5 – Mode shapes of concrete (top) and hybrid (bottom) 3D models in ETABS

3. Nonlinear Time History Analysis

3.1 Ground Motion Selection
To investigate the seismic performance of both systems, nonlinear time history analyses were conducted on
both models. One key step was to select proper ground motion inputs that represented the local seismicity of
the site where the building was designed. A common procedure is to select a suite of motions to match a
uniform hazard spectrum (UHS) for a site. UHS, as specified in NBCC, is defined by the spectral
acceleration ordinates with same probability of exceedance (e.g. 2% in 50 years) at different periods.
However, for southwest coast of British Columbia where Vancouver is located, three different types of
earthquakes contribute to the total hazard, namely 1) crustal earthquakes occur in shallow North America
plate; 2) subcrustal earthquakes occur in deep Juan de Fuca plate; and 3) subduction earthquakes occur at the
interface of two plates [18]. By conducting a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) for the vibration

© The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering - 2c-0228 -

2c-0228 The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, 17WCEE

Sendai, Japan - September 13th to 18th 2020

period of the hybrid system, there were about 67% of hazard contributed by the subduction earthquakes, 24%
were from the subcrustal earthquakes, and only 9% were from the shallow crustal earthquakes. Therefore, by
considering this complicated hazard scenario, it was not appropriate to use the conventional UHS as target
spectrum. In this study, a multiple event-based conditional mean spectrum (CMS) method for ground motion
selection was adopted [19].
To construct the CMS [20], a spectral acceleration from the UHS was conditioned at a target period
(e.g. vibration period of the structure T) and the rest acceleration values at other periods were determined
based on an inter-period correlation. The correlations were derived from the hazard deaggregation (e.g.,
mean magnitude, mean distance, and uncertainty, etc.) and suitable ground motion prediction equations for
different earthquake types. Fig.6 presents the developed CMS and their comparison with the UHS spectrum
for the hybrid system at conditional period of 2.24 s. The constructed CMS for each earthquake type had
same spectral acceleration with the UHS at the conditional period, but lower values were calculated at other
periods based on the correlation function. Target CMS spectra were also developed for the concrete system.
Next, for each earthquake type, 11 pairs of ground motion were selected for each corresponding CMS
spectrum according to NBCC for both buildings. Ground motion databases, including the PEER NGA-West2
[21] and the COSMOS [22], were used for selecting the motions. Linear scaling was conducted for a period
range of 0.2T to 2.0T. Vertical ground motions and spectral matching were not considered in this study. In
total, 66 pairs of ground motion records (both horizontal components) were selected for the nonlinear time
history analysis.

Fig. 6 – Comparison of target UHS and CMS for the hybrid system

3.2 Results
With the selected motions, nonlinear dynamic analyses were performed on both models to assess the
structural performance. Fig.7 presents the comparison of inter-storey drift ratio (IDR) at both coupling and
cantilever directions of both systems. As one of the most important indicators for structural response, IDR
has been widely adopted as the basis for seismic design and post-earthquake evaluation. As specified by
NBCC, a 2.5% drift limit is defined for life safety when designing normal buildings (e.g. residential and
commercial buildings). Both buildings had maximum IDR less than 2.5%, demonstrating there were enough
seismic resistance in design. It can be clearly seen that the hybrid system had smaller IDR when compared to
the pure concrete building. Specifically, a maximum IDR of 0.35% was obtained at the 27 th floor in the
hybrid system in its coupling direction, which was 30% lower than the 0.5% IDR in the concrete building. A
similar finding was drawn in the cantilever direction.

© The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering - 2c-0228 -

2c-0228 The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, 17WCEE

Sendai, Japan - September 13th to 18th 2020

a) b)

Fig. 7 – Comparison of mean inter-storey drift ratio: a) coupling direction, b) cantilever direction

Fig.8 compares another important response index - the storey shear. As expected, for high-rise construction
that were studied in this paper, both buildings showed the higher mode effects in the storey shear distribution
clearly. Similar to the results in IDR, the hybrid system had about 33% lower base shear when compared to
the concrete building. This was mainly due to the lower seismic weight of the hybrid system.

a) b)

Fig. 8 – Comparison of mean storey shear: a) coupling direction, b) cantilever direction

© The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering - 2c-0228 -

2c-0228 The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, 17WCEE

Sendai, Japan - September 13th to 18th 2020

4. Conclusions
This paper proposed a novel concrete-wood hybrid system for high-rise construction in seismically active
regions. The feasibility of the proposed concept was investigated by a case study: a 30-storey conventional
flat-slab concrete building and a 30-storey hybrid system were first designed for Vancouver, Canada, and
then modelled using nonlinear finite element analysis software. Ground motion records that represented
complicated hazards of southwestern Canada were selected by employing an advanced multiple event-based
CMS method. The motions were then used as inputs for performing the nonlinear dynamic analysis of the
developed building models. The analysis results indicate that the proposed system reduced the seismic mass
by 32% when compared to the concrete building, resulting shorter vibration periods and less structural
responses. The maximum inter-storey drift ratios and the base shears in both directions of the hybrid building
were smaller than those obtained for the concrete building, demonstrating the feasibility and effectiveness of
the proposed concept.

Acknowledgement
The funding support by the Discovery Grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
of Canada (NSERC) and International Joint Research Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering (ILEE) are
greatly acknowledged. We would also like to express our appreciation to the test data provided by Tongji
University.

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2c-0228 The 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, 17WCEE

Sendai, Japan - September 13th to 18th 2020

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