Effect of Lateral Bracing of Wall’s Studs on the Static Resistance Function of Studs under Blast Loading

“Cold-formed steel (CFS) stud walls” are innovative alternative for construction of walls in buildings. The main frames of CFS walls consist of a group of vertical members called “studs” which are hold by fasteners within two horizontal members called “tracks” at the upper and lower ends. One of the conventional ways for designing and analyzing of CFS stud walls under blast loading is to employ proper “static resistance functions” of studs. These functions, as the representative of system resistance, permit simplification of CFS stud walls into an equivalent single degree of freedom system for further dynamic analyses under blast loading. Providing adequate lateral bracing is a vital measure to make use of studs’ flexural resistance. If not, lateral-torsional buckling of studs prevent from full utilization of their flexural resistance and subsequent tension-membrane resisting mechanism. Therefore, this study deals with the effect of lateral bracing of studs on the expected resistance of walls exposed to the blast pressure waves. To this end, by adopting a portion of a conventional stud wall and performing finite element analyses, the minimum required bracings and their optimum positions have been determined. Accordingly, make use of two bridges at middle fifth of the stud wall’s span was found as the optimum alternative for the lateral bracing under equivalent blast pressure.