FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Cold-Formed Steel: A Resilient Material for Natural Hazards Engineering
On NHERI’s DesignSafe Radio podcast, Johns Hopkins University researcher Ben Schafer summarizes the strengths of cold-formed steel in tall building design
Published on May 16, 2025
May 16, 2025, West Lafayette, IN – Johns Hopkins University researcher Ben Schafer joined host Dan Zeher on the DesignSafe Radio podcast to discuss cold-formed steel (CFS) and why tall, steel-framed structures are an excellent option in earthquake-prone regions.
Ben Schafer, Willard and Lillian Hackerman Professor of Civil and Systems Engineering, John Hopkins University
An earthquake engineer and authority on steel construction, Schafer provides an overview of this strong, ductile, and lightweight material that can be formed and used as building-frame members, much like timber. (Another plus, cold-formed steel is fully recyclable.)
Also called “thin steel” or “sheet steel,” cold-formed steel is commonly used in the automotive and aircraft industries. Schafer addresses misconceptions that structural engineers have regarding CFS. Basically: it looks too thin to be strong. However, with high-strength sheet steel, deformations do not correlate to lack of strength, he notes, which automotive and aircraft engineers have long understood.
Shafer then previews the CFS10 project, an NSF-industry trial that will test the earthquake resilience of a 10-story, cold-formed-steel-framed building. Schafer and Tara Hutchinson, research engineer at UC San Diego, are the project’s principal investigators.
The goal for CFS10: to understand seismic performance of tall steel-framed buildings. The test structure on the shake table mimics an apartment building or hotel; it exceeds current height and system limits – which will help the team understand how far engineers can go designing for CFS structural elements, subsystems, and non-structural elements like stairs, gas lines and sprinkler systems. After earthquake testing is complete, the building will be put through a series of live fire tests to study how the building structure and components fare in a fire after an earthquake.
The CFS10 project and its tests are funded by NSF awards #1663569 and #1663348, as well as by numerous sponsors and partners.
Details about the test are available at the NHERI at UC San Diego site. https://cfs10.ucsd.edu/, including live cameras.
Episode 1 Intro to cold-formed steel
Episode 2 Stealthy strength of cold-formed steel
Episode 3 CFS10 at UC San Diego
Full episode, 35 minutes, May 13, 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwKAiwBOGS4
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Media Contacts
Danielle McKenna
John Hopkins University
Whiting School of Engineering
dmckenn5@jhu.edu
NHERI Communications
nheri.communications@gmail.com
About NHERI
Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure – NHERI – is a national network of university-centered experimental facilities and resources. NHERI facilities are dedicated to reducing damage and loss-of-life due to natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, windstorms, wildfires, tsunamis and storm surge. The NHERI network provides researchers in the natural hazards engineering and social science communities with state-of-the-art laboratories, data, and training needed to meet the research challenges of the 21st century. NHERI is supported by multiple grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation.