Timber-based hybrid structures provide a prospective solution for utilizing environmentally
friendly timber material in the construction of mid-rise or high-rise structures. This study
mainly focuses on structural damage evaluation for a type of timber-steel hybrid structures,
which incorporate prefabricated light wood frame shear walls into steel moment-resisting
frames (SMRFs). The structural damage of such a hybrid structure was evaluated through
shake table tests on a four-story large-scale timber-steel hybrid structure. Four ground motion
records (i.e., Wenchuan earthquake, Canterbury earthquake, El-Centro earthquake, and Kobe
earthquake) were chosen for the tests, with the consideration of three different probability
levels (i.e., minor, moderate and major earthquakes) for each record. During the shake table
tests, the hybrid structure performed quite well with visual damage only to wood shear walls. No visual damage in SMRF and the frame-to-wall connections was observed. The correlation of visual damage to seismic intensity, modal-based damage index and inter-story drift was discussed. The reported work provided a basis of knowledge for performance-based seismic design (PBSD) for such timber-based hybrid structures.