Thermal Insulation Performance Of Light-gauge Slotted Steel Stud Enclosing Walls

The light-gauge steel stud wall has been widely used in Europe, America andsouth of China, due to its high prefabrication degree, fast construction andenergy-saving. However, steel studs cause thermal bridges for their high thermalcoefficient, leading to higher energy consumption. To reduce the thermal bridgeeffect, light-gauge steel profiles with slotted web were proposed for external wallsby researchers in Canada. And then thermal properties of the standard unit of theslotted steel stud walls were investigated at home and aboard. But all the researchesfocused on load bearing walls, which means perforation is very limited in order toensure their load bearing capacity. Besides this, influences of openings were notconsidered.Experimental and numerical analysis were carried out for non-load bearingslotted steel stud enclosing walls. Parameters were studied to investigate theirinfluences on thermal insulation performance, including row number of theperforations, distance between studs, height of web, area ratio of window to walland thermal coefficients of materials. A simplified formula was put forward forcalculating the heat transfer coefficient of the slotted studs walls. The main contentsare as following:(1) Experimental research on thermal insulation performance of the slottedstud wallSix walls were tested in the calibrated hot box. Temperatures of gypsum board,especially of areas aroud the steel stud, were measured to study the effect of thermalbridge. Temperatures of steel webs were also measured to analyze the effect ofperforations. The heat transfer coefficient could be attained through thermal balanceequation. Then influences of parameters on the insulation performance of the slottedstud wall was discussed, including the web height, row number of the perforations,area ratio of window to wall.(2) Finite element analysis of thermal insulation performance of the slottedstud wallA three-dimensional FEM model of the standad unit of the slotted stud wallwas developed with the program ABAQUS to analyze its thermal insulationperformance. After validated by related experimental results, the FEM model wasemployed to investigate the heat transfer machanism of slotted stud walls andinfluences of row number of perforations, distance between studs, perforation ratioon themal insulation performance. (3) Parametric study on thermal insulation performance of the slotted studswallA three-dimensional FEM models of the whole slotted stud wall was developedwith the program ABAQUS and validated with experimental results. Thenparameters were studied to investigate their influences on thermal insulationperformance, including the height of web, area ratio of window to wall and thermalcoefficients of materials. A simplified formula was proposed for calculating the heattransfer coefficient of the slotted stud wall. According to energy-saving standards,thermal insulation design recommendations of slotted stud wall were put forwardfor engineering applications.