Carlos Couto acknowledges the funding from FCT – Fundação para a
Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the Scientific Employment Stimulus –
Institutional Call – CEECINST/00026/2018.
This study focuses on the fire behaviour of external walls in Light Steel Frame (LSF) structures. Previous investigations
have primarily addressed the fire behaviour of internal wall configurations, however, the increasing
number of fires affecting external walls shows that their behaviour must also be understood.
Therefore, this work investigates the fire behaviour of these elements, presenting a numerical study of six
different typologies usually found in LSF practice by analysing the temperature evolution across the wall and in
the steel profiles. The results show that the temperature evolution is slower when the fire is impacting the outer
side of the wall but, in these cases, the recommended critical temperature of 350 ◦C is reached earlier in the steel
profiles. Finally, this work shows that more studies are necessary to describe the fire resistance of external walls,
in particular when these elements have a loadbearing function.
