Thermal breaking systems for metal stud walls -- Can metal stud walls perform as well as wood stud walls

Conference · Wed Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1997

OSTI ID:345257

Kosny, J; Christian, J E; Desjarlais, A O ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States). Buildings Technology Center

Metal stud wall systems for residential buildings are gaining in popularity. Strong thermal bridges caused by highly conductive metal studs degrade the thermal performance of such walls. Several wall configurations have been developed to improve their thermal performance. The authors tried to evaluate some of these wall systems. The thermal performance of metal stud walls is frequently compared with that of wood stud walls. A reduction of the in-cavity R-value caused by the wood studs is about 10% in wood stud walls. In metal stud walls, thermal bridges generated by the metal components reduce their thermal performance by up to 55%. Today, metal stud walls are believed to be considerably less thermally effective than similar systems made of wood because steel has much higher thermal conductivity than wood. Relatively high R-values may be achieved by installing insulating sheathing, which is now widely recommended as the remedy for weak thermal performance of metal stud walls. A series of promising metal stud wall configurations was analyzed. Some of these walls were designed and tested by the authors, some were tested in other laboratories, and some were developed and forgotten a long time ago. Several types of thermal breaking systems were used in these walls. Two- and three-dimensional finite-difference computer simulations were used to analyze 20 metal stud wall configurations. Also, a series of hot-box tests were conducted on several of these walls. Test results for 22 additional metal stud walls were analyzed. Most of these walls contained conventional metal studs. Commonly used fiberglass and EPS were used as insulation materials. The most promising metal stud wall configurations have reductions in the center-of-cavity R-values of less than 20%.

• OSTI ID: 345257
• Report Number(s): CONF-9702141--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
BUILDING MATERIALS
FASTENERS
FINITE DIFFERENCE METHOD
METALS
R FACTORS
RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS
THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY
THERMAL INSULATION
WALLS
WOOD