The fire performance of loadbearing light timber-framed walls is not generally well understood, and considerable professional judgement is required in their design.
This work forms the first part of a research programme and is aimed at producing a design method where the results of a single loadbearing fire resistance test can be used to design a similarly lined wall but of different height and load level.
The experiment consisted of six loadbearing fire resistance tests at various load levels and heights, one of which used a different lining system. The results showed a correlation between load and depth of charring of the studs at failure and a relationship between load and height.
Additional design information and data was also collected, which indicated that the model may be refined further so that a wider range of designs can be derived from limited data. This would enable fire resistance times to be predicted, resulting in considerable cost savings for designers.