This report was developed by Dr. Reynaud Serrette for the Lateral Design Task Group of the AISI Committee on Framing Standards. The objective of this project was to develop elastic shear stiffness coefficients and general (piece-wise linear or continuous) deflection expressions for the shear wall configurations to be included in the AISI Standard for Cold-Formed Steel
Framing - Lateral Design.

This project developed a method to estimate the drift deflection of cold-formed steel frame shear walls recognized in the 2003 ICC International Building Code (IBC) and 2003 NFPA Building Construction and Safety Code (NFPA 5000). The method was based on a simple model for the behavior of shear walls and incorporated empirical factors to account for nonlinear behavior. The empirical factors were based on regression and interpolation analyses of the reversed cyclic test data used in development of the IBC and NFPA 5000 cold-formed steel shear wall design values. The findings provided a basis for the AISI Committee on Framing Standards to include an expression for the deflection of a blocked wood structural panel or sheet steel shear wall in
the AISI Standard for Cold-Formed Steel Framing - Lateral Design.