OUT-OF-PLANE FRAGILITY CURVES OF STEEL-FRAMED GYPSUM PARTITIONS WITH SCREW AND ADHESIVE CONNECTIONS

Extensive evidence indicates that steel-framed gypsum-board partitions are susceptible to seismic damage from small drift demands, which can result in significant economic losses, environmental impacts, and downtime in buildings. To mitigate this risk, various innovations have been developed in partition walls, among which the use of adhesive connections stands out as a recent alternative to screw connections to join gypsum boards to steel frames. The use of adhesive connections has evidenced significant increments in strength and stiffness of partitions, when compared to control partitions with screw connections. However, this behaviour has been studied mainly under in-plane loads and without a detailed analysis of the impact of the use of adhesives in reducing damage states by the development of fragility functions. This research presents an experimental study of 36 real-scale steel-framed gypsum-board panels, where the structural performance, under out-of-plane monotonic loads, of panels with screw connections and panels with adhesive connections is compared, along with other design variables such as gypsum board thickness and steel frame width, in terms of strength, stiffness, and evolution of damage states. Results show that, on average, there was an increment of 101% and 47% in the maximum strength and stiffness, respectively, and a significant reduction in the damage of the panels with adhesive compared to those with screws, while other design variables such as gypsum board thickness and steel frame width had a minor impact on the panel performance. Finally, the developed fragility curves, which passed the goodness-of-fit tests, confirmed the superior seismic performance of the steel-framed gypsum-board panels with adhesive connections. These functions are a key component to develop future performance-based earthquake engineering studies, such as earthquake-induced economic losses, in buildings incorporating steel-framed gypsum-board panels with adhesive connections.