The performance of steel-to-steel connectors in shear are important for cold-formed steel deck diaphragms, but also for a variety of other cold-formed steel systems: shear walls, bracing of gravity walls, and more. AISI Test Standard S905 provides a variety of methods for testing this condition, but little is known about the impact of selecting the different test methods.
Recent work by SDII researchers employed the “alternate” S905 method for steel deck (see post) and here we investigate a simpler supported lap shear connection after Tao and Moen (2015). The idea of the simpler shear test is that it is more generic and could be used in all conditions. However, it is found that the rigidity afforded by the deck profile does influence both strength and stiffness, e.g., here for a PAF in deck tested at JHU vs. the same configuration in single shear tested at VT.
The work was presented at the 2018 International Specialty Conference on Cold-Formed Steel Structures, click here for the paper.