In the last few years the interest in multi-storey timber buildings is growing to their several advantages such as architectural flexibility, sustainability, acoustic performances and easy building. High losses due to recent catastrophic seismic events have raised the interest of the research community to an adequate seismic design of the structures and the use of wood seems to be promising for seismic design due to its low specific weight.

The present paper aims at investigating the seismic behavior of the timber Platform Frame technology, which basically consist in wood-based sheets nailed on a timber framework. At the University of Brescia an experimental campaign has been carried out aimed at investigating the behavior of different types of connections commonly used in frame shear walls.

Several monotonic and cyclic tests on connections between the sheating panel and the wooden frame, and between wood panel and foundation (hold-down system and lateral steel bracket) have been carried out, in order to study their strength, ductility and energy dissipation.

Particular test configurations were chosen in order to simulate the real behavior and boundary condition of the connection in the structure; the testing protocols specified in EN 26891 and EN 12512 were applied for the monotonic and cyclic tests respectively. The experimental results of this preliminary phase show good performances in terms of strength, ductility and energy dissipation for all the connection employed.

The following experimental phase has been dedicated to study the real size timber frame panels. A test bench was designed to study a full-scale panel which will be tested under cyclic reverse loading displacement. Two different levels of vertical load will be applied.