• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.5 no.5
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• pp.407-420
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• 2005

This study presents the strength of braced and unbraced cold-formed steel wall frames consisting of several wall studs acting as columns, top and bottom tracks, and bracing members. The strength and the buckling mode of steel wall frames were found to be different due to the change of bracing type. In addition, the spacing of wall studs is a crucial factor to the strength of steel wall frames. The comparisons were made between the test results and the predictions computed based on AISI Code. The related specifications do not clearly provides the effective length factors for the member of cold-formed steel frame under compression. This paper proposes effective length factors for the steel wall frames based on the test results. A theoretical model is also derived to obtain the modulus of elastic support provided by the bracing at mid-height of steel wall frames in this research.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.9 no.6 s.46
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• pp.31-39
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to investigate the nonlinear behavior of a cold-formed steel (CFS) shear panel, which was composed of built-up columns and tension-only diagonal straps for bracing, when excited by earthquake motions. For the purpose, shaketable tests of a full-scale two-story cold-formed steel (CFS) shear panel were conducted. in the shear panel, the diagonal strap is a major lateral force resisting system, which is a very ductile member, and the columns, which are gravity resisting members, are fabricated by wooing studs, which can't develop their full flexural strength because they may buckle locally. The test results showed that the straps dissipate most of energy of the shear panel in a tension-only and pinched way and the columns dissipate it relatively smaller than the straps but they still contribute to overall dissipation. As a result of this study, investigating real nonlinear behavior of a structure in earthquakes is a very important process by shaketable tests even though it is simple.