Design of steel sheathed cold-formed steel framed shear walls

Abstract A method for the design of steel sheathed cold-formed steel framed shear walls has been developed for inclusion in the American Iron and Steel Institute's North American standards for lateral design using a comprehensive database of single-storey shear wall tests carried out in Canada and in the United States. The wall configurations differed in terms of wall aspect ratio, framing and sheathing thickness, screw fastener schedule and framing reinforcement. The Equivalent Energy Elastic–Plastic (EEEP) analysis approach was used to derive key design information from the test data, including: nominal shear resistance, a resistance factor, an over-strength factor for capacity based seismic design and ‘test-based’ seismic force modification factors for ductility and over-strength.