Design-Oriented Model for Capturing the In-Plane Seismic Response of Partition Walls

Using data generated from experiments, a numerical model is developed for capturing the in-plane seismic response of full-height cold-formed steel framed partition walls. The behavior of the partition wall is captured using a lumped nonlinear material model localized within a zero-length spring. The lumped material is developed with a pinching material used in a parallel configuration within the Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (OpenSees) modeling platform. A simple, lumped model is utilized to facilitate ease of implementation in beam-column type finite element analyses commonly adopted in design of building structures. Importantly, its characteristics are determined by analyzing a large suite of experimental data on institutional and commercial type metal stud walls. Two error metrics based on calculation of the maximum force and half-cycle hysteretic energy are introduced to assess the model’s robustness. The model’s predictive capabilities are demonstrated via simulation of individual walls. In particular, for a fully-connected partition wall, a normalized mean model is shown to capture the experimental hysteretic behavior with a high level of accuracy.