Fire resistance of light gauge steel frame wall systems lined with gypsum plasterboards

Light gauge steel frame (LSF) wall systems are increasingly used in residential and commercial buildings as load bearing and non-load bearing elements. Conventionally, the Fire Resistance Levels (FRL) of such building elements are determined using approximate prescriptive methods based on limited standard fire tests. However, recent studies have shown that in some instances real building fire time-temperature curves could be more severe than the standard fire curve, in terms of maximum temperature and rate of temperature rise. This has caused problems for safe evacuation and rescue activities, and in some instances has also lead to the collapse of buildings earlier than the prescribed fire resistance. Therefore a detailed research study into the performance of LSF wall systems under both standard fire and realistic fire conditions was undertaken using full scale fire tests to understand the fire performance of different LSF wall configurations. Both load bearing and non-load bearing full scale fire tests were performed on LSF walls configurations with varying number of plasterboard linings, and stud section sizes. The non-load bearing fire test results were utilized to understand the factors affecting the fire resistance of LSF walls, while load bearing fire test results were used to understand the effects exposure to realistic design fire time-temperature curves. This paper presents the results of full scale experimental study on different wall configurations, highlights the effects of realistic design fire time-temperature curves on wall panels and the factors affecting the fire resistance of LSF walls.