ABSTRACT

The ever-increasing need for housing generated the search for new and innovative building methods to increase efficiency and enhance quality, one direction being the use of light steel profiles as load bearing elements. Shear walls made of light gauge (LG) steel skeleton in combination with different cladding materials, represent the basic load bearing element of LG structures to resist horizontal loading (i.e. wind and earthquake). For earthquake loading, besides load bearing capacity, other factors like ductility, over-strength and energy dissipation, are important parameters. In this paper, some results of a full-scale shear test program on wall panels are presented, together with results of nonlinear dynamic modelling to investigate eartquake behaviour of LG shear walls.