Title
SFIA182: Cold-Formed Steel Goes Higher: Lessons from a Landmark 10-Story Building Earthquake and Live Fire Test Program
Date/Time/Cost
Thursday, October 1, 2026
2:00 to 3:00pm (ET)
Free
Sponsor
AIA Continuing Education
This SFIA-hosted course is registered with AIA CES and participants will earn 1 “Learning Unit” in the “Health, Safety, Welfare” category. Credit(s) earned on completion of this course will be reported to AIA CES for AIA members.
This course also qualifies for 1.0 PDH under the Florida Board of Professional Engineers (FBPE).
Description
Builders widely use cold-formed steel (CFS) in low-rise construction. But barriers remain to using CFS as a primary load-bearing system in taller buildings and high seismic regions. Design code height restrictions and a lack of full-scale performance data have limited its use.
This webinar will highlight findings from the NSF-sponsored CFS-NHERI research program and its landmark CFS10 project. The project tested a full-scale, 10-story steel-framed building at the University of California San Diego. Researchers subjected the building to increasingly demanding earthquake conditions on the university’s Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table. Researchers followed the earthquake testing with post-earthquake live fire compartment tests.
Attendees will learn what CFS10 revealed about the resilience and performance potential of engineered CFS systems. They will also learn how the research can support analytical modeling, performance-based design and future code and design guidance.
Learning objectives
- Explain the primary barriers that have historically limited CFS steel as a load-bearing system. Describe how these barriers affect mid-rise buildings in moderate-to-high seismic regions
- Describe the scope and testing methodology of the CFS-NHERI and CFS10 research programs. Explain how the programs incorporated full-scale seismic and post-earthquake fire testing
- Identify key findings related to the seismic performance and resilience of engineered CFS structural systems
- Discuss how the research may influence future design practices, analytical tools, code guidance and broader adoption of cold-formed steel in mid-rise construction
About the Presenters
Tara C. Hutchinson of the University of California San Diego and Benjamin W. Schafer of Johns Hopkins University.
Tara C. Hutchinson, Ph.D., S.E.
Tara C. Hutchinson is a professor of structural engineering at the University of California San Diego and a faculty affiliate of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology. Her research focuses on earthquake and geotechnical engineering, performance assessment of structural and nonstructural components, and the application of machine learning and computer vision methods to structural damage estimation.
Benjamin W. Schafer, Ph.D., P.E., F.SEI
Benjamin W. Schafer is the Willard and Lillian Hackerman Professor of Civil and Systems Engineering and the Director of the Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute (ROSEI), at Johns Hopkins University. Schafer’s professorial appointment is in the Department of Civil and Systems Engineering and he holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
About ICS
Industrialized Construction Solutions, Inc.(ICS), Bentonville, Arkansas, is a leader in prefabricated cold-formed steel (CFS) structural systems. ICS delivers integrated building solutions, combining engineering expertise with a scalable fabrication and installation network. Its services include planning, structural design, engineering, digital modeling, fabrication and field installation. ICS also provides structural engineering and consulting for prefab CFS systems, serving owners, developers, architects and contractors across the United States. Visit ics-build.com.