An Experimental Study on the Behaviour of Full-Scale Composite Steel Frames under Furnace Loading

Dong, Yuli; Prasad, Kuldeep; ,

An Experimental Study on the Behaviour of Full-Scale Composite Steel Frames under Furnace Loading

by Yuli Dong,
Kuldeep Prasad,

Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Structures Congress 2008: Crossing Borders

Abstract:

In view of recent large fires in tall buildings, such as One Meridian Square (USA), East Tower Central Park (Venezuela), World Trade Center (USA) and Windsor Tower (Spain), there has been a renewed interest in understanding the structural safety of tall buildings under fire loading. To analyze and understand such events, researchers have focused on the development of numerical models to analyze the behavior of isolated steel members and to a lesser extent, full scale steel structures under fire loading. However, despite the proliferation of numerical models, physical testing continues to be important in developing new understanding and also to serve as a database for validation of the numerical models. Physical testing on single isolated structural elements provide limited data because many aspects of structural behavior that occur due to the interaction between adjacent members as well as the role of connections cannot be studied. Performance of real structures subject to fires is often much better than that predicted from standard tests due to structural continuity and the interaction between members. In addition, tests performed under the current design codes subject the structural element to a heat up phase only and do not consider the cool down phase during which local / global failure of the structure may occur.

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