Behaviour of gypsum sheathed cold-formed steel stud walls under lateral loadings

Gypsum board is a common sheathing material for a steel wall panel systems being used with cold-formed steel (CFS) studs. However, the effect of sheathing material to the panel system is under study by many researchers. Therefore, an experimental investigation was carried out to investigate the behaviour of CFS wall studs studs under flexural loading. A total of 24 full scale single stud panels were tested on unsheathed and both side sheathed panels. The parameters studied were C channel dimensions, sheathing thickness and fastener spacing. The experimental results were compared with the design specifications of AISI and found to be conservative