Fire effect on non-loadbearing light steel framing walls: numerical and simple calculation methods

Abstract

This work presents a study on the effects of fire in non-loadbearing Light Steel Framing (LSF) walls. Since there is still a desire to use a much more simplified method in routine fire resistance design, the objective of this study is to propose an equation that describes the effective width for calculating the fire resistance through one dimensional simplified analysis also described in this study. The one dimensional analysis was possible by considering fourteen layers, where five layers are presented on the gypsum exposed wall, four layers on the cavity and five more layers on the gypsum unexposed wall. The heat flow is considered as one path in both of the gypsum layers but divided into five different paths in the cavity, considering heat transfer between different materials, only in the y direction. Two different methods for the calculation of the effective width were proposed and validated with eleven different configurations of LSF walls, with experimental and numerical two-dimensional results, in order to find which method is more effective. Lastly, parametric studies were made using seven different cavity insulation materials, five different spacing between studs and five different cavity spacing, maintaining every other specification as constant, to understand their role in fire resistance of LSF non-loadbearing walls.