Finite-element modeling of a light-framed wood roof structure

Past high speed wind events have exposed the vulnerability of the roof systems of existing light-framed wood structures to uplift loading, contributing greatly to economic and human loss. This paper further investigates the behaviour of light-framed wood structures under the uplift loading of a realistic pressure distribution. A three-dimensional finite-element model is first developed to capture the behaviour of a recently completed full-scale experiment. After describing the components used to develop the numerical model, a comparison between the numerical prediction and experimental results in terms of the deflected shape at the roof-to-wall connections is presented to gain confidence in the numerical model. The model is then used to analyze the behaviour of the truss system under realistic and equivalent uniform pressure distributions and to perform an assessment of the use of the tributary area method to calculate the withdrawal force acting on the roof-to-wall connections.