Abstract
It seems that the racking resistance of wooden wall panels with various types of openings depends upon their shapes. In a previous report, three formulae to estimate the racking resistance of the panels were proposed and the influence of opening upon the resistance was theoretically investigated. This paper reports the racking test results for the full scale specimens including twelve types of the openings in the glued plywood skin panels. The racking load was applied to the specimens without the tie rod system which was defined by ASTM, and the applicability of the formulae was examined in comparison with the observed values. The results are briefly stated as follows; The racking resistance of the panels with openings decreased according to increase in the ratio of opening to the panel area. The rate of decrease was affected by both the shape and area of the opening. Generally, the resistance of panel with a slender opening was inferior to that with a square one having the same area. It seemed that close agreement between the theoretical values calculated by the formulae and the experimental ones was obtained.
