Advancing use of Cold-formed Steel Framing Systems for Mid-Rise Residential Construction in Seismic Zones via Full-Scale Shake Table Testing

A capstone 10-story cold-formed steel (CFS) framed building was constructed at the Large High-Performance Outdoor Shake Table at the University of California San Diego (NHERI@UC San Diego). Coined CFS10, this unique, full-scale, building specimen is designed beyond current code-limits with advances in steel sheet sheathed shear walls incorporating high-capacity chord stud detailing proofed in complementary component test programs. This landmark test specimen was designed as an 11.6 m x 6.9 m slice of an archetype CFS-framed residential building. Interior and exterior finishes as well as a wide range of nonstructural systems (stairs, fire sprinkler and gas piping, windows, and doors) were designed and installed in the building. The integrated nonstructural systems add realism to the building and ultimately aid in the opportunity to document the performance of true-to-constructed CFS-framed residential buildings. Uniquely, the building embraces a variety of construction modalities including 2D panelized and 3D volumetric construction methods. Detailing and advances of the later are the subject of a companion paper (Rivera et al., 2026). Testing of the CFS10 building specimen at the NHERI@UC San Diego shake table was recently completed and involved subjecting the specimen to a suite of 18 increasing intensity multi-directional earthquake motions, followed by execution of two live fire compartment tests. This paper presents an overview of the salient design and construction features of the specimen, the earthquake test protocol and an early impression of the buildings’ behavior during the seismic test phase. This is the first publication since testing, with final data processing in progress.

Proceedings of the 8th Residential Building Design & Construction Conference, Pennsylvania Housing Research Center, State College, PA.