Experimental Study on the Seismic Performance of Traditional Timber Frame with Wattle and Daub Infill

Chuan-dou timber structure is one of the main structural forms of Chinese traditional timber structures and is widely used in traditional houses and ancient towns and villages in southwest China. In this paper, the wood frame specimens with different wall thicknesses were designed based on the field investigation in many areas of Chongqing and the quasi-static tests were carried out. The damage and failure characteristics, bearing capacity, stiffness, ductility and energy consumption of each specimen were analyzed. The results show that the bare frame specimen had obvious uncoordinated deformation in the test, and its bearing capacity, stiffness, ductility and energy dissipation are low. Increasing the thickness of wattle and daub infilled wall can significantly improve the bearing capacity, stiffness and energy dissipation capacity of the specimen. At the same time, if the wall thickness is too large, serious clay shedding may occur, which may become a security risk. The joint energy dissipation is the main energy dissipation mechanism of bare frame. For the wood frame specimens embedded with wattle and daub, the contribution of wall energy dissipation is not obvious at the beginning of loading, but in the middle of loading, the ratio of wall energy dissipation to total energy dissipation is significantly improved. The fluctuation of proportion of wall energy dissipation is not large, which can stably contribute to energy dissipation capacity.