Experimental investigation into the performance of cold-formed steel walls sheathed with OSB and cement-based panels

Cold-formed steel (CFS) structures are developing fast in both seismic and not seismic areas for their high degree of prefabrication, high structural performance and the good energy performance. In the last decades, many research groups around the world have focused on the analysis of seismic behaviour of CFS structures and the development of design procedures that still need to find their full implementation in many international codes, first of all in the Eurocode. Therefore, the development of CFS system still requires, very often, the adoption of large experimental testing, in particular, when sheathing braced design methodologies are applied. This paper presents, for the first time, the in-plane tests of CFS walls sheathed on one side with oriented strand boards (OSB) and cement based panels (CP). In particular, a set of two full scale tests of ledger walls having 2400mm width and 2926mm height, sheathed with OSB3 and CP, and a set of two tests on ledger walls having dimensions (2400mmm x 2974mm) sheathed with OSB3 panels are presented and discussed. The tests have been carried out in accordance to the BS EN 594:1996. The results confirm in agreement with literature studies that the collapse is governed by the failure of the screws between panels and steel profiles. And, more importantly it shows that, when both OSB and CP are present the collapse is governed by the failure of the screws between cement panels and steel profiles. When comparing the two sets of walls those sheathed only with OSB panels have lateral resistance which is about 1.5 time higher than when also CP are present.