Experimental study on the axial behavior of perforated cold-formed steel wall frames

Abstract

This paper presents a full-scale experimental investigation on perforated cold-formed wall frames under axial compression load. The focus of this investigation is to study the axial buckling behavior as well as to obtain the axial load capacity of the wall frames. The wall frames specimens are divided into three different wall stud arrangements with two different cold-formed steel thicknesses which are 1.55 mm and 1.9 mm. During the testing, maximum failure load, horizontal displacement and strain distribution were recorded. The axial load capacity increases significantly as the cold-formed steel thickness increases and double bracing was used. The wall frame with Arrangement 2 shows higher axial load capacity among all specimens. Nearly all the wall frame specimens failed in Torsional Flexural Buckling (TFB) and Flexural Buckling (FB). Furthermore, the effect of holes can be seen where visible local buckling occurred at web and flanges near or in between holes.