Influence of Double Protection Layers on the Fire Resistance of Load-Bearing LSF Wall Panels

The adoption of Light-gauge Steel framed (LSF) panels has recently gained a rapid increase in designing low to mid-rise buildings, especially in high seismicity zones due to their light weight and the environmentally sustainable solution that they offer. In this study, a new innovative solution of Double Layers (DL) of Magboard (MGO) is proposed for LSF panel, to evaluate its thermo-mechanical response under an axial compression load, subjected to fire ISO834. Their vulnerability to high temperatures requires more solutions for protection and its configurations in order to improve their fire resistance rating (FRR), taking into account the panel weight and cost. Therefore numerical models are developed and calibrated, using ANSYS APDL, to predict the temperature effect and to study the influence of using of innovative DL of MGO instead of single layer or conventional DL for LSF panels. The outcomes of this research show that the innovative DL may be used instead of the conventional one since they are provided a similarity of behavior for FRR. The latter is increased with more than 55% compared to the single configuration.