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Newsbrief - Sound performance and fire resistance of shear-resistant walls being studied
Recent natural disasters have meant an increased focus on the need for buildings to resist lateral movement from high winds or earthquakes. In wood-frame buildings, wood-stud shear walls often are incorporated into the building design to resist these lateral movements.
These shear walls often form the critical compartment boundaries within a wood-frame building and thus are required to meet fire resistance and sound transmission performance ratings. IRC has initiated a research project in conjunction with other interested groups to determine the fire and acoustical performance of such shear walls.
A first partner is the Canadian Wood Council which wishes to examine the impact on the fire and sound resistance caused by applying shear bracing to single wood-stud walls. Additional consortium partners are being sought to expand the scope of the project to include staggered and double wood-stud shear walls, and possibly load-bearing steel studs. Results from this study will be the basis for a list of fire and sound isolation ratings for shear wall assemblies which may be included in Part 9 of the National Building Code.
