Capacity Reduction and Fire Load Factors for Design of Steel Members Exposed to Fire
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 12
Abstract
A general reliability-based methodology is proposed for developing capacity reduction and fire load factors for design of steel members exposed to fire. The effect of active fire protection systems (e.g., sprinklers, smoke and heat detectors, fire brigade, etc.) in reducing the probability of occurrence of a severe fire is included. The design parameters that significantly affect the fire design of steel members are chosen as random variables. Raw experimental data published in the literature was analyzed to obtain the statistics of parameters for which no statistical information was available in the literature. Model errors associated with the thermal analysis models are also characterized based on experimental data. It is found that uncertainty associated with the fire design parameters is significantly higher than that of room temperature design parameters. To illustrate the proposed methodology, capacity reduction and fire load factors are developed for simply supported steel beams in U.S. office buildings, and it is shown that for consistent reliability these factors should vary depending on the presence of active fire protection systems in a building.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
AISC. (2005a). Commentary on the load and resistance factor design specifications for structural steel buildings, Chicago.
AISC. (2005b). Load and resistance factor design specifications for structural steel buildings, Chicago.
Beck, V. R. (1985). “The prediction of probability of failure of structural steel elements under fire conditions.” Trans. Inst. Eng. Aust., 27(1), 111–118.
Bentz, D. P., and Prasad, K. R. (2007). “Thermal performance of fire resistive materials I. Characterization with respect to thermal performance models.” Rep. No. NISTIR 7401, NIST, Gaithersgurg, Md.
Bruls, A., Cajot, L. G., and Franssen, J. M. (1988). “Characterization of an insulating material with regard to ECCS recommendations for the fire safety of steel structures.” J. Constr. Steel Res., 9(2), 111–135.
Buchanan, A. H. (2001). Structural design for fire safety, Wiley, New York.
Carino, N. J., et al. (2005). “Federal building and fire safety investigation of the World Trade Center disaster: Passive fire protection.” Rep. No. NIST NCSTAR 1-6A, NIST, Gaithersgurg, Md.
CIB W14. (1986). “Design guide for structural fire safety.” Fire Saf. J., 10(2), 81–137.
Culver, C. G. (1976). Survey results for fire loads and live loads in office buildings, National Bureau of Standards, Washington, D.C.
Der Kiureghian, A., Haukaas, T., and Fujimura, K. (2006). “Structural reliability software at the University of California, Berkeley.” Struct. Safety, 28(1–2), 44–67.
Ellingwood, B. Galambos, T. V., MacGregor, J. G., and Cornell, C. A. (1980). NBS special publication 577: Development of a probability based load criterion for American National Standard A58, National Bureau of Standards, Washington, D.C.
Ellingwood, B. R. (2005). “Load combination requirements for fire-resistant structural design.” J. Fire Protect. Eng., 15(1), 43–61.
Ellingwood, B. R., and Corotis, R. B. (1991). “Load combinations for buildings exposed to fires.” Eng. J., 28(1), 37–44.
European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). (2001). “Natural fire safety concept.” Valorization research project, Product-Structural Dept. ARBED-Research Centre L-4009 ESCH/ALZETTE, Luxembourg.
European Committee for Standardization (CEN). (2002). “Actions on structures—Part 1-2: General actions-actions on structures exposed to fire.” Eurocode 1, Brussels, Begium.
European Committee for Standardization (CEN). (2005). “Design of steel structures—Part 1-2: General rules-structural fire design.” Eurocode 3, Brussels, Begium.
European Convention for Constructional Steelwork (ECCS) Technical Committee 3. (2001). “Model code on fire engineering.” Document no. 111, 1st Ed., Brussels, Belgium.
Feasey, R., and Buchanan, A. (2002). “Post-flashover fires for structural design.” Fire Saf. J., 37(1), 83–105.
Foster, S., Chladna, M., Hsieh, C., Burgess, I., and Plank, R. (2007). “Thermal and structural behaviour of a full-scale composite building subject to a severe compartment fire.” Fire Saf. J., 42(3), 183–199.
Harmathy, T. Z., and Allen, L. W. (1973). “Thermal properties of selected masonry unit concretes.” ACI J., 70(2), 132–142.
Iqbal, S., and Harichandran, R. S. (2009). “Reliability-based design specifications for simply supported steel beams exposed to fire.” Proc., 10th Int. Conf. on Structural Safety and Reliability, CRC, Boca Raton, Fla.
Kirby, B. R., Wainman, D. E., Tomlinson, L. N., Kay, T. R., and Peacock, B. N. (1994). Natural fires in large scale compartments—A British steel technical, fire research station collaborative project, British Steel Technical, Swinden Laboratories, Moorgate, Rotherham.
Kruppa, J. (1979). “Collapse temperature of steel structures.” J. Struct. Div., 105(ST9), 1769–1788.
Lie, T. T., and Kodur, V. K. R. (1996). “Thermal and mechanical properties of steel-fibre-reinforced concrete at elevated temperatures.” Can. J. Civ. Eng., 23(2), 511–517.
Magnusson, S. E., and Pettersson, O. (1981). “Rational design methodology for fire exposed load bearing structures.” Fire Saf. J., 3(4), 227–241.
Manzello, S. L., Park, S. -H., Mizukami, T., and Bentz, D. P. (2008). “Measurement of thermal properties of gypsum board at elevated temperatures.” Proc., 5th Int. Conf. on Structures in Fire, 656–665.
Mehaffey, J. R., Cuerrier, P., and Carisse, G. (1994). “A model for predicting heat transfer through gypsum-board/wood-stud walls exposed to fire.” Fire Mater., 18(5), 297–305.
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). (2002). Handbook of fire protection engineering, 3rd Ed., Quincy, Mass.
Ravindra, M. K., and Galambos, T. V. (1978). “Load and resistance factor design for steel.” J. Struct. Div., 104(ST9), 1337–1353.
Ruddy, J. L., Marlo, J. P., Ioannides, S. A., and Alfawakiri, F. (2003). Fire resistance of structural steel framing. Steel guide no. 19, AISC, Chicago.
Schmidt, B. J., and Bartlett, F. M. (2002). “Review of resistance factors for steel: Data collection.” Can. J. Civ. Eng., 29(1), 98–108.
Schneider, U., Diederichs, U., and Ehm, C. (1982). “Effect of temperature on steel and concrete for PCRV’s.” Nucl. Eng. Des., 67(2), 245–258.
Shin, K. -Y., Kim, S. -B., Kim, J. -H., Chung, M., and Jung, P. -S. (2002). “Thermo-physical properties and transient heat transfer of concrete at elevated temperatures.” Nucl. Eng. Des., 212(1–3), 233–241.
Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE). (2000). Guide to performance-based fire protection analysis and design of buildings, Bethesda, Md.
Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE). (2004). Engineering guide: Fire exposures to structural elements, Bethesda, Md.
Stuckes, A. D., Tinker, J. A., and Simpson, A. (1986). “Effect of moisture on the thermal conductivity of lightweight aggregate concrete.” Build. Services Eng. Res. Technol., 7(1), 27–32.
Sultan, M. A. (1996). “A model for predicting heat transfer through noninsulated unloaded steel-stud gypsum board wall assemblies exposed to fire.” Fire Technol., 32(3), 239–259.
Thomas, G. (2002). “Thermal properties of gypsum plasterboard at high temperatures.” Fire Mater., 26(1), 37–45.
Tsantaridis, L. D., Ostman, B. A.-L., and Konig, J. (1999). “Short communication: Fire protection of wood by different gypsum plasterboards.” Fire Mater., 23(1), 45–48.
Wainman, D. E. (1992). “The effect of load ratio on the limiting temperatures observed during two BS476: Part 21 fire resistance tests carried out on universal beams protected with 20 mm thick Vicuclad insulation board.” Rep. No. SL/HED/R/S1199/18/92/C, British Steel, Technical Swinden Laboratories, Moorgate, Rotherham.
Whiting, D., Litvin, A., and Goodwin, S. E. (1978). “Specific heat of selected concretes.” ACI J., 75(7), 299–305.
Wullschleger, L., and Wakili, K. M. (2008). “Numerical parameter study of the thermal behaviour of a gypsum plaster board at fire temperatures.” Fire Mater., 32(2), 103–119.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 12 • December 2010
Pages: 1554 - 1562
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Apr 3, 2009
Accepted: May 3, 2010
Published online: May 27, 2010
Published in print: Dec 2010
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.