Experimental study of the fire resistance of walls and floors constructed with steel studs and steel joists

Abstract

Steel-framed houses using light-gauge steel as a structural member have been developed and constructed since the early 2000s as a new construction pattern in the low-rise construction market in Korea. Generally, the steel frames consist of two major load-carrying elements such as load-bearing wall and floor construction made up of approximately 1.0-mm cold-formed light-gauge steel and light-weight boards. Therefore, the steel frames are very simple to construct and make the construction period shorter than the ordinary construction type or concrete-based construction. In Korea, regardless of the construction material types, the building regulation requires 1-h fire rating for apartment buildings of four stories or under. To meet the fire resistance, new models of load-bearing wall and floor should be developed. From the fire test results, two layer gypsum boards of 12.5mm in thickness reinforced with glass fiber were proven satisfactory to provide 1-h fire resistance with load-bearing wall and floor. Copyright (c) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.