Experimental Research on Different Configurations of Cold-Formed Steel Shear Panels

Use of Cold-Formed Steel (CFS) systems has increased significantly during the last decades. Advantages of cold-formed steel involve short construction time, effective cost and time management, lightweight inherence of the material and high structural performance against lateral loading. CFS structures are mainly formed of CFS frames coated with different kind of sheathings such as gypsum wallboard (GWB), oriented strand board (OSB), plywood or some infill materials which are squeezed to the frame. As the CFS frame is sheathed with one of these sheathing types, it can behave similar to a shear panel which is capable of resisting lateral forces. The behavior of these shear panels is dependent on many factors such as thickness of the sheathing and cold-formed steel, dimensions of the shear panel, type and spacing of fasteners as well as type of sheathing. In order to see the effect of these factors as well as to acquire some experimental data to be used in the new Turkish Seismic Code which is planned to be published and renewed in 2016, a significant sum of experiments have been conducted in Structures Laboratory of Boğaziçi University involving dissimilar configurations of shear panels.status: publishe