Fire testing and design of stainless steel structures

Presented by:Ajit Choudhary

Chandu Namewar

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06010404
06010416 06010421 06010424 04010419

Hemant Kumar Bhaskar : Kamal Kumar Nidhi Gupta : :

62-story First Interstate Bank Building fire in Los Angeles, 1988

Things to be taken care of

Structural elements should possess an appropriate fire resistance to resist collapse. Fire resisting partitioning walls and slabs should resist flame penetration or excessive temperature rise on their unexposed faces. Any failure of the structure in the fire zone should be gradual, involving large plastic type deformations. The parts of the building away from the fire should remain intact.

Hp/A Concept
The heating rate of steel section in fire depends upon section factor: The perimeter of the steel exposed to flames-Hp(m) The cross-sectional area of the sectionA(m2)

Heavy sections (lower Hp/A)heat up more slowly than light sections (higher Hp/A), a heavy section will require less insulation than a light section to achieve the same fire resistance.

Fire Resistance Time:

The temperature developed in the member at the required fire resistance time is less than the critical temperature necessary to cause failure. Steel members will collapse in a fire when their temperature reaches a critical level.

This critical temperature varies according to a) The load conditions b) The temperature distribution across the section, which typically is in the range 500 to 900C. In a building in which a natural fire occurs the heating rate is also influenced by the member location

Effect of Fire on Stainless Steel Column and Beam

Test procedure for column

Fire tests were carried out on 6 stainless steel columns.
Four tests were carried out by SCI on columns of 3.4 m length, three of them were rectangular hollow section and the other one was of Isection with both the ends fixed in all four columns. The other two tests were carried out by CTICM on square hollow section columns with pinned end connections with overall length of 3.9 m. A small eccentricity of loading of 5mm was applied on both CTICM columns to induce the overall buckling failure mode . In all the six tests the load was applied through hydraulic jacks and the load was kept constant through out the test by allowing the column to expand against load. The columns were exposed to fire on all four sides.

Measured material properties and C/S dimensions of tested column:

Performance criteria for column

BS:476 part 20 and part 21 states that fire resistance of a column is minimum of the time elapsed between commencement of heating to the termination of heating or until failure to meet the load bearing capacity criterion occurs. According to European standard EN 1363-1 (1999) a column fails when : (I ) Vertical contraction=h/100mm (II) Rate of vertical contraction=3h/1000mm/min where h is initial column height in mm Testing was stopped before the rate of vertical contraction reached 3h/1000

Column test results

All the six columns tested were failed by overall flexural buckling. I- section column also displayed evidences of local buckling which was expected due to slender nature of the constituent plate elements. I-section columns showed significant lateral deflections were which was absent in other columns

Column before and after Testing

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Test Procedure for Beams

Four fire tests on grade 1.4301 stainless steel beams supporting a concrete slab were carried out. SCI tested one RHS beam and one I-section beam CTICM tested two I-section beams one with simply supported at 1.9m and one continuous over three support with two equal span of 2.37m

Measured material properties and C/S dimensions of tested beams

Applied loads and load ratios for tested

beams

In all cases, the load was applied via a concrete slab by means of a hydraulic loading

Temperature rise followed the standard time temp. relationship specified in EN 1991-1-2. The beams were exposed to fire on three sides, with the concrete slab on the top flange of the members. All test were anisothermal.

Location of thermocouples on 2001256.0 RHS beam

Performance criteria for Beam

The criteria for failure of beam is taken as when:
deflection of L/20 rate of deflection = L^2/9000d mm/min whichever exceeds first. where L=clear span of beam (in mm) d=distance from the top of the structural section to the bottom of the design (in mm) *BS 476: Part 20 (1987)

Beam test results

1. Critical temperature of bottom flange and fire resistance

2. All beams failed by in-plane (major axis) bending

2001256.0 RHS beam after testing

Numerical modeling:
The four columns and two beams tested by SCI were modeled using the non-linear finite element package LUSAS, Version 13.1 Analysis was done in two steps: In the first step, load was applied to the column at room temperature, and in the second step, temperature was increased following the measured temperaturetime relationships until failure. Column were fully fixed and beam were taken as simply supported with load applied on web.

Results of the numerical analyses:

Predicted (FE) critical temperature for column and beam

Results of the numerical analyses:

FE model gives the slightly lower value of critical temperature This slight change is due neglecting the enhanced strength in the corner regions of the cross-section or the application of a uniform temperature development along the length of the member, while in the test the members were protected from direct heat application near the supports In the I section non uniform temperature across cross section was introduced which resulted in same lateral deflection behavior as in the test.

Conclusion
It is concluded that the described finite element models are capable of replicating the non-linear large deflection response of structural stainless steel members in fire. Recommendation from given result are included in euro code : part1.2 Improvements of 6% for column buckling resistance and 14% for in plane bending resistance over the current Euro code methods are achieved.

References
http://www.corusconstruction.com http://www.kuleuven.ac.be/bwk/materials/T eaching/master/wg04b/l0400.htm http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/wtc/highri sefires.htm http://www.sciencedirect.com/ http://www.jotun.no/