Seismic Behavior of Sheathed Cold-Formed Structures: Numerical Study

Abstract

This paper presents and discusses the results of a numerical study on seismic deformation demand to sheathed cold-formed steel structures. It is part of a wider research, involving also physical tests on oriented strand board-sheathed stud walls. Numerical results have been obtained using an ad hoc mathematical model of the hysteresis response of sheathed stud walls, also taking into account the strong nonlinearity of the response for small lateral displacements and the strong pinching of hysteresis loops. This model has been calibrated against data coming from physical tests, using both old available experimental results and newly obtained ones. Numerical results have been elaborated on in order to both judge the seismic performance of the structure under increasing seismic intensity levels and develop an ad hoc cyclic loading protocol for physical tests.