Abstract
It is necessary to know the performance of wooden wall panels with opening in order to estimate the real shear strength of prefabricated wooden structures from results of unit-panel racking tests. However, a great deal of labour will be required to assume the shear strength of panels with various openings based on experiment alone. In the first place I propose below three theoretical formulae to estimate the shear strength of them followed by a description of their characteristics. The formulae are as follows; (i) Window type and horizontal slit type opening panels [numerical formula]…(I) (ii) Door type and vertical slit type opening panels (with spandrel-wall) [numerical formula]…(II) (iii) Vertical slit type opening panels (without spandrel-wall) [numerical formula]…(III) The above-mentioned formulae are proposed on the assumption that the whole panel undergoes a pure-shear deformation in case of (i) and (ii), and that the wing-walls undergo a rotatory deformation in case of (iii).
