Civil and Environmental Engineering Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2018
Journal
Journal of Structural Fire Engineering
Volume
9
Issue
4
First Page
266
URL with Digital Object Identifier
10.1108/JSFE-08-2016-0015
Last Page
286
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Abstract
Purpose
Existing analytical methods for the evaluation of fire safety of reinforced concrete (RC) structures require extensive knowledge of heat transfer calculations and the finite element method. This paper aims to propose a rational method to predict the axial capacity of RC columns exposed to standard fire.
Design/methodology/approach
The average temperature distribution along the section height is first predicted for a specific fire scenario. The corresponding distribution of the reduced concrete strength is then integrated to develop expressions to calculate the axial capacity of RC columns exposed to fire from four faces.
Findings
These expressions provide structural engineers with a rational tool to satisfy the objective-based design clauses specified in the National Code of Canada in lieu of the traditional prescriptive methods.
Research limitations/implications
The research is limited to standard fire curves and needs to be extended to cover natural fire curves.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to propose an accurate yet simple method to calculate the axial capacity of columns exposed to standard fire curves. The method can be applied using a simple Excel sheet. It can be further developed to apply to natural fire curves.
