In developing countries with high seismic activity, a need exists to construct resilient infrastructure and reduce the housing deficit. Industrialized timber construction and the implementation of seismic isolation interfaces may represent a good alternative to respond to these demands. This paper studies the feasibility of constructing cross-laminated timber (CLT) buildings equipped with frictional pendulum bearings in Chile or similar highly seismic regions. The first part of this study shows a first-order approach for modeling the highly nonlinear behavior of CLT walls using a Smooth Hysteretic Model (SHM). An equivalent model of a base-isolated building was developed using the SHM as well as a physical model of the Friction Pendulum System in order to assess the seismic performance of CLT buildings with frictional isolators. The second part of this research presents and discusses the results of a broad parametric analysis concerning the seismic performance of base-isolated CLT buildings. The seismic assessment was carried out by deriving fragility curves and including the uncertainty linked to the seismic input and the friction coefficient of the isolation system. Constructing lateral resistant systems based on CLT walls presents a feasible alternative for buildings in high seismic hazard areas. Excellent seismic performance is achieved if the superstructure’s is designed with a reduction factor of 1, or if the superstructure’s fundamental period ranges from 0.6 to 0.9 s and is designed with a reduction factor of 2 and ductility capacity of 6 or more. An excellent seismic performance can be obtained for larger reduction factor values if the superstructure has middle to high maximum ductility capacity.

We extend data resources originally developed for Central America and Mexico in the Next‐Generation Attenuation (NGA)‐Subduction (NGA‐Sub) project database and use the data to customize a global ground‐motion model (GMM) for regional application. The GMM applies for peak ground acceleration, peak ground velocity, and 5%‐damped pseudo‐spectral accelerations for periods from 0.01 to 10 s, for the median orientation‐independent horizontal component of ground motion. The database for Mexico is extended by considering small magnitude ( M < 6) events and three large events ( M 7.2– M 8.3) in 2017 and 2018. The latter are particularly important, because they are well recorded over a broad distance range and apply for hazard‐critical conditions. These changes increase the size of the database from 593 recordings from 66 events (NGA‐Sub) to 1882 recordings from 121 events. The expanded data are examined relative to a global NGA‐Sub GMM, which reveals a number of interesting features including faster anelastic attenuation in backarc than forearc regions and generally similar levels of site response to those in the global GMM. These features are incorporated into the regionally customized model. Advantages of this GMM relative to previous regional models applied at national scale for engineering applications are that its functional form has a physical basis, and its coefficients are well constrained from global data and are only adjusted for the target region as required by regional data.

We present a model for Valley of Mexico site response that is referenced to a 30 m time‐averaged shear wave velocity ( V _{S 30} ) of 760 m/s. This reference condition ensures compatibility with regional ground motion models (GMM) for Central America and Mexico (CAM), which were developed from an expanded version of the NGA‐Subduction (NGA‐Sub) database as described in a companion paper. The site response model is derived using ground motion data from 89 sites within the Valley of Mexico and uses V _{S 30} and soft soil depth as independent variables, the former of which was evaluated using shear wave velocity from literature for 56 sites (10 co‐located with ground motion stations). As a consequence of the unique Lake Texcoco geology, the model predicts far greater levels of site response than those provided by global ergodic models, and notably, larger site response than prior models for the Valley of Mexico that had utilized a reference site approach using a medium‐stiff soil site as the reference site. Linear amplification increases with decreasing V _{S 30} in a period‐dependent manner that captures strong resonance effects associated with variable depths of soft lacustrine soils. Site period is found to not appreciably improve predictions, due to strong negative correlation with V _{S 30} . Differential depth (depth minus V _{S 30} ‐conditioned mean depth) produces repeatable trends of reduced short period amplification and increased long period amplification for especially deep sites, the effects of which are modeled. We identify nonlinear site response for high‐frequency ground motions using variable‐amplitude reference site ground motions. The provided models improve upon current practice for Mexico because the reference GMM applies across CAM, V _{S 30} and soft soil depth are used in lieu of site classes, and nonlinearity is incorporated.