Study on the seismic behaviors of China ancient wooden building by shaking table test

Chinese ancient wooden buildings are important in Chinese traditional culture, and to some degree they represent the development level of science and technology in ancient china. How to protect the cherished relic from being destroyed by strong earthquakes is the challenge to us. In this paper we make a model according to the actual ancient wooden palace with a scale of 1/3. 5 2 of the prototype structure, on which the shaking table experiment is carried out. The dynamic characteristics of frequency and damping ratio are tested, the seismic responses of the model are also obtained. By simulating the mechanical state of the mortise-tenon joint and Dougong with the unit of varied stiffness spring, time-history responses of the structure are analyzed. It is shown that the seismic responses of the roof, are reduced obviously due to the slide between column footing and pier stone and the action of friction damping of Dougong and mortise-tenon joint under strong earthquake. So Chinese ancient wooden buildings show good behaviors of energy dissipation and vibration reduction, which also give us very useful implications to construct modern buildings.