Analysis of the robustness of a steel frame structure with composite floors subject to multiple fire scenarios

Abstract

This study presents robustness analyses of a three-dimensional multi-storey composite steel structure under the action of multiple fire scenarios. The main objective of the work is to improve current understanding of the collapse resistance of this type of building under different fire situations. A finite element approach was adopted with the model being firstly validated against previous studies available in the literature. The modelling approach was then used to investigate the collapse resistance of the structure for the various fire scenarios examined. Different sizes of fire compartment are considered in this study, starting from one bay, three bays and lastly the whole ground floor as the fire compartment. The investigation allows a fundamental understanding of load redistribution paths and member interactions when local failure occurs. It is concluded that the robustness of the focussed building in a fire is considerably affected by the size of fire compartments as well as fire location. The subject building can resist progressive collapse when the fire occurs only in the one-bay compartment. On the other hand, total collapse occurs when fire is located in the edge three-bay case. This shows that more than one fire scenario needs to be taken into consideration to ensure that a structure of this type can survive from collapse in the worst-case situation.

Behavior of Earthquake Damage Steel Structures in Fire

“…This is in line with the findings from Quiel and Garlock [50], who argued that the concrete slab could be disregarded in the 2D stress analysis of frames. By contrast, Suwondo [51] recommended that designers should consider the integrity of the concrete slab using various traveling fires. Furthermore, the actual behavior will be different from the bare steel frame since floor slabs are joined to beams as composite actions [28], [52]- [56].…”

Integral Fire Protection Analysis of Complex Spatial Steel Structure Based on Optimized Gaussian Transformation Model

“…Instead of relying only on the fire protection of components to achieve the purpose of fire resistance as the traditional design method. Generally speaking [ 13 ], the overall fire resistance of the structure can be strengthened in the following ways: Strengthen the continuity and integrity of the structure, such as using connection structure to strengthen the spatial association between components. Improve the statically indeterminate times and crossing capacity.…”

“…Instead of relying only on the fire protection of components to achieve the purpose of fire resistance as the traditional design method. Generally speaking [13], the overall fire resistance of the structure can be strengthened in the following ways:…”

Numerical Investigation on Seismic Specifications of Coupled Primary-Secondary Structural Systems

“…These relationships not only led to significant development in design codes, but also suggested several parameters into calculations that had not been considered before. Numerous studies have been carried out addressing the analysis of secondary systems (Xia et al 2021;Suwondo et al 2021;Masoudina 2021;Hupfauf and Gebbeken 2022;Yao et al 2022), whose methods are also considered a major improvement in international codes of practice.…”