Earthquake and Postearthquake Fire Testing of a Midrise Cold-Formed Steel-Framed Building. II: Shear Wall Behavior and Design Implications

Abstract

Complementing a companion paper that summarizes the building global response and physical damage of a midrise cold-formed steel (CFS) framed building during an earthquake and postearthquake fire test program, this paper focuses on understanding the seismic behavior of the shear walls utilized in the building system during this test program. In contrast to shear walls tested in an isolated configuration, the shear walls within the full-scale test building were constructed and tested under real-world kinematic constraints and dynamic loading environments. The shear walls located at various planar and vertical locations of the test building were instrumented with a dense array of analog sensors to monitor the shear wall local responses. In this study, the shear wall local responses are correlated with the global responses of the building to advance understanding regarding the behavioral characteristics of individual shear walls and in particular the interactions of the shear walls as part of the lateral-load-resisting system. Important seismic design parameters are inferred from the measured building response using a parameter optimization strategy. Their implications associated with the seismic design of CFS wall-framed structural systems are discussed in relation to code provisions and design guidelines.