Fire performance of LSF walls made of hollow flange channel studs

摘要

ududThis paper presents an investigation conducted to evaluate the effects of important parameters affecting the structural fire performance of LSF walls. It also evaluates the applicability of commonly used critical hot flange temperature method to determine the (FRR) of different LSF walls. ududududThe effects of important parameters such as stud section profiles and their dimensions, elevated temperature mechanical property reduction factors of the steel used, types of wall configurations and fire curves on the FRR of LSF walls were investigated. An extensive finite element analysis based parametric study was conducted to evaluate their effects. For this purpose, finite element models which were validated using the full scale fire test results were used. Using the structural capacities obtained from finite element analyses, the load ratio versus FRR curves were produced for all the different LSF walls considered. ududududStud depth and thickness significantly affected the fire performance of LSF walls due to the differences in temperature development pattern, thermal bowing deflections and the failure modes of stud. The FRR of LSF walls increased significantly when steel studs with higher elevated temperature mechanical property reduction factors were used. FRR significantly changed when realistic design fire curves were used instead of the standard fire curve. Furthermore, both the critical hot and average flange temperature methods were found to be unsuitable to predict the FRR of LSF walls. ududududThe developed comprehensive fire performance data would facilitate the development of LSF walls with enhanced fire performance and importantly it would facilitate and advance the successful applications of HFC section studs in LSF walls. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.