The Cold-Formed Steel Research Consortium (CFSRC), an industry-academic cooperative to advance cold-formed steel research, headquartered at Johns Hopkins University, concluded a decade of advancing cold-formed steel research in 2023 (having been founded in 2013). The decision by the American Iron and Steel Institute to exit active support of the building construction market at the end of 2023 leaves CFSRC without primary funding, and as a result CFSRC will discontinue its external activities at the end of 2023. (The CFSRC DSpace of reports will be permanently maintained, this website will stay live for at least a few years, however there will be no 2024 CFSRC Colloquium.) As the cold-formed steel (CFS) industry re-organizes in 2024, and going forward, CFSRC investigators will continue to collaborate and look for creative means to advance CFS research and development.
From 2013-2023 CFSRC provided a domestic research network driving innovation for CFS. The vision and mission was ambitious and settled for nothing less than “the premier organization in the world for performing research in CFS structures”. In the U.S. the 5 most highly cited CFS researchers from 2013-2022 are all CFS investigators. The U.S. National Science Foundation and the American Iron and Steel Institute were the two largest funding sources for CFSRC research. CFSRC managed numerous projects, including:
- CFS Building Innovation Archetypes
- Computational Shear Wall Models
- Steel Diaphragm Innovation Initiative
- CFS-concrete composite columns pilot
- Nextgen Steels (AHSS for construction)
- Wind Turbine Support Towers
- Stud Bearing on Concrete
- “Virtual testing” standards development
- Efficient solutions for buckling, connections, more
- CFS-NHERI
- Reliability 2030
In addition, CFSRC held major conferences, symposiums, and workshops, including:
- CFSRC Colloquium, e.g. in 2022 included 65 papers, 125 participants, from 15 different time zones
- CFSRC Summer Symposium, e.g. in 2022 included 17 research students, from 6 universities, embodying the future of CFS research
- CFSRC Investigator Workshop, e.g, in 2023 included 7 faculty investigators, and initiated 6 new proposals, renewing the engine for CFS research.
Major CFSRC successes included the Steel Diaphragm Innovation Initiative, the Nextgen Steels project, and CFS-NHERI. The Steel Diaphragm Innovation Initiative created a beneficial path forward for seismic design of buildings with steel deck floor and roofs (mitigating a material threat due to new design method adoption). NSF funded 525K, AISI funded 500K, AISC funded 500K, other steel industry 375K over a 5 year effort. The effort resulted in major updates to ASCE 7, AISI S100, AISI S400, AISC 341, AISC 370, ASCE 41, several pre-standards, and resulting in follow on innovations funded by Pankow, AISC, SDI and others the effort remains active and latest updates can be found at steeli.org. The Nextgen steels effort translated automotive advanced high strength steels (AHSS) advances to building construction. NSF funded 400K, AISI in-kind only, and Nucor a 30K follow-on gift. Unfunded in-kind collaborations with H. Blum on metal building applications, and T. Gernay on high temperature both led to updated AISI Specification provisions. The research is providing a path for bringing DP and MS (up to 1200 MPa / 175 ksi) AHSS to AISI construction standards, and building out a new path for high value steels. The CFS-NHERI effort to advance understanding of CFS seismic building response to unlock lightweight sustainable taller buildings with dry floors includes a total NSF investment to date of 1.09M, NIST 300K, and enormous in-kind support from SFIA, ClarkDietrich, DCI, and many more. Testing and modeling to date have clarified and benchmarked participation of non-designated systems, the culminating 10-story shake table test is scheduled in 2024 and complete details are still available for this ongoing project at cfs10.ucsd.edu.
Endings create new opportunities. The CFSRC team is proud of their accomplishments from the last decade, but look forward to new efforts and new partnerships that continue to advance efficient, sustainable, resilient structures to benefit society. Material efficiency matters: thin to win!
-Ben Schafer, December 2023