Lateral behavior of cold-formed steel framed shear walls with steel sheet sheathing using FE method

Abstract

The cold-formed steel stud framed shear wall using steel sheet sheathing is a lateral force resisting system for residential and low-rise commercial buildings. The current design specifications such as AISI Lateral Design 2007 Edition provides nominal shear strength for a limited range of sheet steel sheathed CFS shear wall configurations in terms of the sheathing thickness and the wall aspect ratio (height divided by width). Considering the ever increasing construction of buildings with cold formed steel and industrialization of the construction process, a need for shear strength of wall for wide range of wall geometrical dimensions seems to be inevitable. In this study, shear wall panels have been analyzed using the finite element method and the ABAQUS software and a method for modeling the screw connection of steel sheathing to frame has been presented so that the simulation of possible damage in connection locations resulting in displacements will be possible. Available experimental data has been used for validation of the model. After verification of finite element model, the effect of the various parameters of shear wall including height of wall, yield stress properties, frame member and sheeting thickness, and the method of connecting frame to the steel sheathing on the lateral behavior of wall was evaluated. At the end, some methods have been presented for increasing the lateral strength of these types of shear walls.

Keywords

• cold formed steel
• light structures frame
• nonlinear analyze
• steel shear wall
• finite element method