Shaking table test of flexible support cold-formed thin-walled steel frame structure

To study the mechanical behavior of flexible support cold-formed thin-walled steel frame structures under earthquake excitation, two full-scale frame models with flexible supports arranged only at the top and bottom of the frames were designed and fabricated. Shaking table tests were conducted on both models. By comparing their dynamic characteristics and responses, the influence of flexible supports on the overall seismic performance of the structures was investigated, along with numerical simulations. The results show that as the peak input excitation acceleration increases, the natural frequency of the structure decreases, while the dynamic response increases. Compared to the T₂ model, the T₁ model has greater overall stiffness, with smaller acceleration and displacement responses.Under both frequent and rare seismic events, the maximum inter-story drift angles of both models meet the code's limit requirements and demonstrate a high safety margin. The flexible support cold-formed thin-walled steel frame structures exhibit good deformation capacity and seismic performance. The finite element analysis results align well with the experimental results.