Experimental and analytical studies on different configurations of cold-formed steel structures

Popularity of Cold-Formed Steel (CFS) structures has recently increased considerably in the last years as a consequence of discovered advantages such as lightness of the material, significant energy absorption capacity providing seismic performance against lateral loading, time efficiency and cost effectiveness. CFS structures are composed of shear panels which involve cold-formed steel bare frames coated with different kind of sheathings such as gypsum wallboard (GWB), oriented strand board (OSB), plywood or some infill materials which are connected to the frame. Combination of CFS bare frames and sheathing boards provides the shear panels with lateral load resistance against seismic actions. There are several factors which have a direct influence on the behavior of CFS shear panels such as type of sheathing board, thickness of cold-formed steel, spacing of the screws binding the sheathing board to the bare frame and magnitude of the axial loads. On behalf of observing the impact of these outlined factors upon the behavior of CFS shear panels as well as to attain some experimental data to be utilized in the new Turkish Earthquake Code 2016, a considerable amount of laboratory tests was conducted in Structures Laboratory of Bogazici University on different configurations of CFS shear panels. Posterior to the acquisition of these experimental data, studies upon developing analytical models representing the actual experimental behavior of one of the shear panels have been conducted, thus providing possibilities for 3-D seismic performance assessment of a representative one-story cold-formed steel structure for the final part of this paper.