UC San Diego to shake test mid-rise cold-formed steel building systems

South Gate, Calif. — The University of California San Diego, along with their partners including SWS Panel and Truss, the builders of the engineered Mid-Rise Cold-Formed Steel (CFS) Building Wall Systems, is preparing for the largest simulated earthquake testing on June 15 in San Diego, less than a week after a recorded 5.2 real earthquake took place in San Diego.

The tallest-ever CFS-framed test building was erected on the large outdoor shake table at UC San Diego. The building and its key structural components were equipped with seismic instrumentation.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development, California Seismic Safety Commission, and more than 10 industry sponsors, including SWS Panel and Truss, partnered to perform a unique experimental research program. This research aims to evaluate the earthquake and post-earthquake fire performance of mid-rise CFS-building systems through full-scale earthquake and live thermal testing of a 6-story wall-braced system. Central to this effort is the construction of a full-scale portion of a 6-story CFS-wall braced building directly on the UCSD Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table.

Wall and floor systems for the building are assembled in a panelized fashion offsite at the SWS Panel and Truss Facility in South Gate, Calif., thus the overall erection time of the building is dramatically reduced. The test building will be subjected to low amplitude white noise motions and sequentially increasing in amplitude earthquake motions. Subsequently, live thermal tests will be conducted on two floors of the building, in corridor and room like spaces strategically designed to investigate thermal patterns that develop due to reduced compartmentation ensued during the earthquake motions.

View streaming video of the building at https://northwest-camera.click2stream.com