Experimental Investigation of the Structural Response of a Steel-Framed Building Subjected to Traveling Fire
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 148, Issue 2
Abstract
This paper presents experimental investigations on the thermal response and structural behavior of a full-scale, 2-story, steel-framed building exposed to traveling fire. In this test protocol, the fuel bed consisted of pine cribs and then ignited from one end. Thermal and structural responses of the steel-framed building were measured throughout the fire, from which unsteady spreading and burnout rates of the fire could be obtained. Multiple temperature peaks and drastic temperature gradients were observed as flames spread across the compartment, which, led the structural members to become successively displaced due to the short period of thermal action at peak temperature in one location. Fracturing of connecting bolts was observed, indicating these connections should be further strengthened in practical design. As a main failure mode, local deformation of the beam lower flange and web adjacent to beam-to-column joints was also found. The test results invalidated the homogeneous temperature assumption and provided important data for performance-based structural fire design in such large compartment fire scenarios.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The work presented in this paper was supported by Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China (MC-201620-H01-04).
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Published In
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 148 • Issue 2 • February 2022
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 19, 2021
Accepted: Sep 29, 2021
Published online: Nov 25, 2021
Published in print: Feb 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Apr 25, 2022
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