Experimental study on shear resistance of high strength cold-formed steel framing walls

The shear resistances of sixteen full-size(2.4m by 3m) specimens of high strength cold-formed steel framing wall were studied in this paper.The walls were made of 550MPa cold-formed steel C-section studs,550MPa cold-formed steel rib panels and gypsum wallboards.Though the test of the four types of walls,double boards,single gypsum wallboard,single steel rib panel and steel X-strap bracing on both sides,under monotonic loading without axial compression loading,cyclic loading without axial compression loading and cyclic loading with axial compression loading,the properties of shear load carrying capacity and the structural ductility factor for the specimens were obtained.Experimental results show that the shear strengths of specimens under monotonic loading are higher than that of specimens under cyclic loading for all types of walls;the sum of the shear resistance of walls with single gypsum wallboard and 0.8 that of walls with single steel rib panel is close to the shear resistance of walls with double boards;the shear strengths of walls with steel X-strap bracing on both sides are 60%-67% that of walls with double boards;the structural ductility factors for the specimens with double boards are between 1.731 and 2.384.