LIGHTSTEEL: New Generation of Lightweight Steel Elements for Sustainable Resilient Construction

Modern society is challenged by economic and environmental issues such as climate change, requiring engineers to deModern society is challenged by economic and environmental issues such as climate change, requiring engineers to develop more efficient and sustainable construction solutions. The urbanisation and rapid population growth in earthquake-prone regions have also increased societal exposure to seismic related hazards and the urgent need for more resilient structural systems. Cold-formed steel (CFS) structures can offer a cost-effective and sustainable alternative to traditional construction systems, and are being increasingly adopted in modern construction due to their lightweight, rapid construction and full recyclability. However, typical CFS structures have low buckling resistance and ductility, which limits their practical application especially in seismic regions and tall buildings.

This research project aims to develop a novel CFS structural built-up system with high structural performance for rapid construction of multi-storey buildings in seismic regions. The new system benefits from high-performance CFS built-up elements optimised under axial and flexural loading by taking into account their post-buckling behaviour. This will allow for adoption of this system in tall buildings, large open spaces and flexible architectural design. Such innovative structural solutions can reduce the required structural weight, and hence, the construction costs and embodied carbon by 30-50% compared to conventional steel constructions. An advanced design framework will be developed to obtain cost-effective structures with optimum structural performance under normal (gravity and wind) and extreme (strong earthquake) load conditions. This project bridges the knowledge gap by developing fundamental understanding, advanced optimisation tools and performance-based design guidelines so that the new high performance CFS structural system can be widely used in practice.