Wood Exterior Non-Bearing Wall in Steel Building

[msdmoney]

In a building with metal stud exterior non-bearing walls I've always provided either a slotted drift track (vertical slots in the flange, horizontal slots in the web) to accommodate beam deflection and in plane drift or a nested track assembly. For a building with exterior, non-bearing wood studs, do you guys typically provide similar measures to accommodate in plane drift of the exterior? Could provide a similar track, but it wouldn't necessarily fit a 2x6 top plate at 5.5" wide. Most of what I see for wood is primarily to address vertical deflection only, ie the Simpson DTC clip. I understand the building to be a moment frame lateral system, with wood floors and diaphragms, but I don't have great information.

 

[jayrod12]

You still need to provide a slip joint of sorts. There are a few possible details but I'm not a huge fan of any of them. The one I have seem perform the best is hanging the wall from the top leaving a gap at the bottom, then size the anchor bolts at the bottom correctly for the bending/prying force.

The one I see installed most often (when I actually see them) is a plate screwed directly to the u/s of structure. The wall is then built to 1" - 1 1/2" below that plate. Top plate of the wall is pre-drilled for screws/nails to allow the wall to slide up and down. You end up needing a crap load of screws/nails into the attached plate to get them to work in bending. That's why I prefer the first detail because anchor bolts are at least a little meatier.