Application of Cold Formed Steel Framing Structures for Construction in Zones Affected by Land Subsidence

The main objective of this research project is to study the application of structural systems based on light gauge cold-formed steel framing to housing in subsidence zones, having the following scopes: characterize the typical settlements in a discontinuity due to subsidence, to build a laboratory facility to simulate these settlements, to simulate and to evaluate numerically and in laboratory in a full scale model the structural performance of a house subjected to settlements due to subsidence, in terms of its stresses and strains and, eventually, its capacity of retrieval to its nondeformed shape.