The ELISSA project: planning of a research on the seismic performance evaluation of cold-formed steel modular systems

The European project named "Energy Efficient LIghtweight-Sustainable-SAfe-Steel Construction" (Project acronym: ELISSA) is devoted to the development and demonstration of cold-formed steel (CFS) modular systems. In particular, these systems are nano-enhanced prefabricated lightweight steel skeleton/dry wall construction with improved thermal, vibration/seismic and fire performance, resulting from the inherent thermal, damping and fire spread prevention properties. From a structural point of view, these systems are represented by a sheathed-braced CFS solution, in which the seismic resistant elements are made of “Cocoon” CFS stud shear walls laterally braced by “Knauf” gypsum-based panels. The project plans the research activities on the basis of three levels: micro-scale, meso-scale and macro-scale. Concerning the research activity for the seismic performance evaluation, these three levels correspond to different test typologies. In particular, the micro-scale level consists of tests on materials/products/components forming the seismic resistant elements (shear walls), the meso-scale level corresponds to tests on single walls, the macro-scale level consists of shaking table tests on full scale two stories house prototype. This paper presents and discusses the planning of the research given information about test programs, specimens/prototypes, instrumentations and loading protocols.