Seismic performance of steel sheathed cold-formed steel shear walls

In this paper the performance of steel sheathed cold-formed steel shear walls is evaluated by testing seven full scale walls under cyclic and monotonic loading. Of particular interest are the specimens' maximum lateral load capacity and deformation behaviour. The study also looks at the failure modes of the system and investigates the main factors contributing to the ductile response of the CFS walls in order to suggest improvements so that the steel shear walls respond plastically with a significant drift and without any risk of brittle failure, such as failure in the connections. The walls tested are of different configurations possessing different structural characteristics including: stud's thickness, width of the walls, and loading pattern. The test outcomes show that the common failure mode of the walls is an undesirable anchorage failure. Considering that there are very few criteria in the code which clarify the design of anchorage for steel sheathed systems, the study signifies the need and the importance of further research in this area