Limiting Heights for Gypsum-Sheathed, Cold-Formed Steel Wall Studs

Interior walls and permanent or temporary partitions must be designed to resist loadings, such as those from earthquake, wind, and other building occupancy-related forces, applied perpendicular to the plane of the walls. The purpose of this test series was to develop experimentally based limiting heights for interior, non-load-bearing, cold-formed steel wall panels sheathed with gypsum board and subject to uniformly distributed lateral loadings. The limiting heights generated for ASTM C 754-98a allow designers to meet the 1997 Uniform Building Code requirements, as well as more restrictive loading and deflection requirements if appropriate to a particular application. Limiting heights for deflection limits of L 360, L 240, and L 120 (where L is the height of the wall) are developed over the range of typical design pressures.