A new report has just been released based on experimental testing in the Thin-walled Structures lab to explicitly reveal how bridging and sheathing share their role to brace cold-formed steel stud walls in compression. In an 8’x8′ cold-formed steel framed wall the testing shows that through-the-knockout bridging takes approximately 1% of the compression load when only the steel is present. In the same wall with gypsum board sheathing added the forces in the bridging decrease substantially. It is found that the strength of a sheathed wall is essentially the same whether the bridging is resolved/anchored at its end or not. Dig into the full details in the report!
