Decrease of cold-formed slotted studs heat conductivity by slots shape modification

Abstract

Cold-formed steel framing is gaining ground in Russia. Now it’s making attempts to adopt curtain wall panels with cold-formed slotted steel members in residential building. In view of cold Russian climate, a problem of mitigation of the cold bridge effect created by the steel have appeared. It’s proposed to improve steel members’ thermal performance by choice a new web holes shape. Stud models with different web holes configuration were investigated by means of fine element analysis in COMSOL Multiphysics software. Their thermal and load-carrying performance was compared with a standard slotted stud. Two promising pilot models were chosen for further experimental research. An experiment to compare heat conduction capacity of these pilot models and a standard slotted stud was carried out in the Laboratory of glass and facade constructions. The results of this experiment are presented in this article.