Bending Behavior Of Light-gauge Slotted Steel Stud Enclosing Walls

The enclosing wall with slotted studs is the wall that is slotted with multi-rowof holes on the webs of C-shaped cold-formed studs to increase the heat transferpath and reduce the thermal bridge effect of the steel wall. This kind of wall canimprove the insulation performance of wall and inherit the advantages of theclassical steel studs wall which is convenient, efficient and light in weight. Theslotted opening that weaks the static properties of webs decreases the bearingcapacity of wall, however the non-bearing wall has little requirements for the staticproperty, so the enclosing wall with slotted studs has broad application prospects inthe field of non-bearing wall. Study on bending behavior of slotted studs has notbeen reported yet. This paper conducted experimental and numerical studies on theslotted steel studs. The non-bearing slotted studs walls under distributed loading wasalso investigated considering the contribution of gypsum board. Parametric studieswas conducted to investigate the mechanical behavior of both sloted steel studs andwalls using such studs under distributed loading and to specify main parameters thathave a considerable influence on the static response of those members to distributedloading. The main contents of this dissertation are listed：1.Experimental study was carried out to investigate the local buckling anddistortional buckling behavior of C-shaped steel studs with slotted webs subjectedto pure bending. Considered parameters include the web height, the thickness ofspecimen and the number of rows of slots on the webs.2.The finite element modes were built up with ABAQUS to investigate thebending behavior of slotted steel studs. The reliability of the models were verifiedwith both experimental results and the CUFSM calculation results.3.Parameter analysis was carried out to investigate the web height, the studthickness, the number of rows of the slots on the static response of slotted C-shapedsteel studs to uniformly distributed transverse loading. The distance between theend of the slotted area to the end of the studs was also discussed.4.The static behavior of standard unit of slotted steel studs walls was alsonumerically investigated with ABAQUS to determine how the parameters,including the wall thickness (the web height of studs), the stud thickness, the slottedrows and the lateral studs slotted will influence the bending behavior of the walls.Finally, the finite element model of the full-scale wall with window openings was established and the flexural performance to distributed loading was analyzed.The results show that the results obtained from ABAQUS is in good agreementwith those from CUFSM and the test results. The finite element model establishedin this paper is reasonable and reliable. The flexural performance of the C-shapedcold-formed steel members subjected to uniformly distributed transverse loading isconsiderably decreased with more rows of slots, lower height of the stud-web, orthinner steel studs. The slots can be set along the whole length of the studs as thedistance from the end of the slotted area to the end of the studs have little effect onthe flexural performance of the members. The walls with slotted studs has asatisfying safty reservation in both flexural ultimate bearing capacity and rigidity tobe used as enclosing walls.