General
Any design and engineering of light steel structures must be carried out by professionals.
Building Information Modeling (BIM) is easy to use in light steel frames, and most projects should be carried out at BIM level 2.
Early in the process, a design team workshop should be held and attended by all relevant parties.
Overall structure
The light steel frame is a highly engineered structural system and should be designed by appropriately qualified structural engineers in accordance with national design codes and SCI design guidelines.
The light steel frame must be designed to be stable under horizontal loads, taking into account the pull-up force on the foundation.
The light steel frame must be designed for lashing action to ensure structural robustness in compliance with building regulations.
As part of the package, to resist heavy loads, hot-rolled steel profiles can be included in the depth of the light steel walls and floors.
Before "freezing the design", any changes that affect the load (such as adding PV on the roof) must be communicated to the frame designer.
Floors
The floor can be light steel or composite board. In addition to a vertical load resistance, light steel floors must be designed with strict maintainability restrictions to ensure that users feel comfortable during use.
Early in the design process, allowable temporary building loads should be agreed with the light steel frame designer.
Generally, floor joists should be placed "manually" so that the flanges of adjacent C-profiles face the opposite direction to minimize the distortion of the joists.
If the gypsum board or elastic rod is directly fixed to the bottom flange of the floor joist, additional constraints such as bridging or blocking are usually not required when the span is up to 5 m.
Laminate flooring with a span greater than 3.5 m usually requires
Support during construction. Depending on the load-bearing capacity of the floor, the pillars should continue to the two or three concrete floors below.
The span of the composite deck floor shall be determined through structural calculations; specific depth limits shall be observed.
In the structural design process, the perforations on the composite floor with a diameter greater than 150 mm must be considered. During the design process, multiple perforations or larger openings can be accommodated by decorative panels and additional plate reinforcement.
Walls
The light steel wall on the facade must be designed to take into account the vertical load and lateral bending.
The position of brickwork relative to the frame should consider the structural tolerance of brickwork verticality, insulation surface deviation and light steel frame wall verticality.
Various cladding systems can be used with light steel frames. The cavity width should be provided according to the manufacturer’s instructions and specified by the warranty provider.
The support of light steel frame buildings should be provided by X supports (crossed flat belts) or K supports (diagonal C-shaped cross-section), which can be supplemented by the effect of wooden shelves or partitions.
In order to anchor the support bracket to the foundation, the anchoring details constructed should conform to the structural design plan.
When light steel frames are used for beams and block floors, special attention needs to be paid to the anchoring details of the supporting wall panels.
If you want to connect heavy objects (such as wall-mounted boilers or kitchen equipment) to the light steel wall, you can include other light steel plates or headrests to reinforce the stud wall. These should be specified during the design phase.