With the help of the Steel Deck Institute, especially John Mattingly, Bob Paul, and Tom Sputo, and the generous collaboration of Larry Luttrell at West Virginia University, SDII researchers have assembled a database of tested steel deck diaphragm performance spanning back to the 1960’s. This database, which forms the basis for much of the current standards on steel deck, is being revisited to better understand the potential seismic performance of these systems. Initial findings from the database have been summarized by SDII researchers. The findings will be presented at the International Specialty Conference on Cold-Formed Steel, hosted by the Center for Cold-Formed Steel Structures. They show the great potential of this information for answering questions related to strength, stiffness, and ductility of steel deck diaphragms.
PDF of Paper: O’Brien et al 2016 – Characterizing the Load Deformation Behavior of Steel Deck Diaphragms.