An introduction of midrise thinwalled steel structures:Research progress on coldformed steel framed composite shear wall systems

Abstract:

Cold-formed steel structures are natural green and industrialized buildings. Due to the large population, shortage of land resource, as well as serious earthquake disasters, the development of mid-rise cold-formed steel structure becomes very consistent with Chinese national conditions. At present, there are four major technical difficulties existed in the expansion of low-rise cold-formed steel structure systems to mid-rise buildings. Based on the investigation and improvement on the structure system and major components, a new mid-rise cold-formed steel framed composite shear wall structure system was proposed, and two important components of the new structure system were developed, including a composite floor system combining cold-formed steel joists with autoclaved lightweight concrete slabs and cold-formed steel shear wall with sandwich panel units. This paper also reviewed our and other researchers’ latest investigation on some fundamental theory problems, such as the lateral and fire resistances of the new structure system et al. Finally, the author points out some research work need to be conducted for the new structure system from a macroscopic perspective.