Design concept and behavior of a resilient cold-formed steel composite wall via SMA cables

To enhance the seismic resilience of cold-formed steel composite (CFSC) walls, an innovative CFSC wall equipped with shape memory alloy (SMA) cables named as resilient cold-formed steel composite (RCFSC) wall is proposed and experimentally investigated in this study. The configuration and mechanical principle of the novel RCFSC wall are introduced first, and its prediction models and design concept are established. Two full-scale specimens are tested under cyclic loading to obtain their failure modes, hysteresis curves , lateral stiffness , ductility, energy dissipation and residual deformation. For the RCFSC wall, the shear force distribution between the wall and the SMA cables is studied. The test results show that SMA cables have significant effect on optimizing residual deformation of the walls. SMA cables are helpful to improve the deformed performance, ductility, and energy-dissipation capacity of the walls. • Novel structure resilient cold-formed steel shear wall was proposed and experimentally validated. • Proposed design concept can relatively accurately control the behavior of the RCFS wall. • Proposed theoretical models can relatively accurately predict the lateral behavior of the RCFS wall. • Residual deformation and ductility of the CFSC wall was considerably optimized.