Thermal Property And Mechanical Behavior Under Axial Compression Of Light-Gauge Steel Stud Wall

The light-gauge steel framing has been widely used in China in the past few years due to its advantages, such as light, handy model, convenient operation and economical efficiency. Research and application on this kind of structural system have been well developed in foreign countries and many experiences in this structure were gained. However, in China its application is just started and there are lots of problems which need to be solved.The light-gauge steel stud wall is usually used as inner and exterior wall in the villadom and low-rise dwelling. But cold bridge effect of the steel wall will be serious when this kind of structural system has been used in the cold areas. Finite Element Method was used for analyzing a heat transfer model of light gauge steel wall, and compared with experiment. And the result proved the correctness of the model. Thermal property of C-shaped studs walls was analyzed, and furthermore, the parameters which affect the coefficient of heat transmission of wall were studied. Three forms of steel walls have been studied in this paper. They are walls filling wooden bricks on the flange, filling wooden bricks between gauge steel studs, with polystyrene boards outside. The thermal property of each kind of walls was analyzied and the coefficient of heat transmission was calculated for designing.The mechanical behavior of steel wall studs with wallboard bracing was investigated by employing the commercial software ANSYS. The influence of equivalent spring stiffness and distance between tapping screws was studied for cold-formed steel wall studs. It is showed the bearing capacity of the studs with wallboard bracing increase of 3~5 times comparing with those without bracing. Furthermore, the parameters of slots have been analyzed on the buckling modes and axial strength for the studs with or without slots.