
Numerical Study of the Seismic Performance of Cold-Formed and Hot-Rolled Steel Hybrid Modular Wall Panel Systems
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Structural systems comprising Cold-Formed Steel (CFS) shear wall panels, despite their lightweight advantage and modular construction capabilities, are not employed in mid-rise multi-storey buildings due to their slender rigidity and low lateral strength. With the objective of enabling their usage as mid-rise LFRS, a hybrid CFS based modular wall panel with hot-rolled Square Hol-low Steel (SHS) members, is proposed. Experiments were conducted on the full-scale wall panel sub-assemblies under the combined vertical and horizon-tal cyclic loading conditions to investigate the seismic performance. A Finite Element model was then developed using the ABAQUS tool and validated using the experimental data. This paper summarizes the parametric investi-gation carried out to assess the effects of various factors like fastener spac-ing, sheathing configuration, and gravity load. Based on the numerical study, the following conclusions were drawn: the lateral strength and stiffness of the system were significantly improved with the use of more uniform configura-tion of the FCB sheathing units. Also, the reduction in the fastener spacing between the sheathing and frame members was observed to have a decisive role on the seismic performance of the proposed hybrid wall system.