Fire resistance of composite non-load bearing light steel framing walls

The light steel frame walls are mostly used for non-load bearing applications. The light steel framed walls are made with studs and tracks that require fire protection, normally achieved by single plasterboard, by composite protection layers or by insulation of the cavity. The partition walls are fire rated to resist by integrity and insulation. Seven small-scale specimens were tested to define the fire resistance of non-load bearing light steel frame walls made with different materials. All tests were validated using two-dimensional numerical models, based on the finite-element method, the finite-volume method and hybrid finite-element method. A good agreement was achieved between the numerical and the experimental results from fire tests. The fire resistance increases with the number of studs and also with the thickness of the protection layers. The hybrid finite-element method solution method looks to be the best approximation model to predict fire resistance.