Fire resistance of 3D printed concrete composite wall panels exposed to various fire scenarios

Abstract

Purpose Fire safety of a building is becoming a prominent consideration due to the recent fire accidents and the consequences in terms of loss of life and property damage. ISO 834 standard fire test regulation and simulation cannot be applied to assess the fire performance of 3D printed concrete (3DPC) walls as the real fire time-temperature curves could be more severe, compared to standard fire curve, in terms of the maximum temperature and the time to reach that maximum temperature. Therefore, this paper aims to describe an investigation on the fire performance of 3DPC composite wall panels subjected to different fire scenarios. Design/methodology/approach The fire performance of 3DPC wall was traced through developing an appropriate heat transfer numerical model. The validity of the developed numerical model was confirmed by comparing the time-temperature profiles with available fire test results of 3DPC walls. A detailed parametric study of 140 numerical models were, subsequently, conducted covering different 3DPC wall configurations (i.e. solid, cavity and rockwool infilled cavity), five varying densities and consideration of four fire curves (i.e. standard, hydrocarbon fire, rapid and prolong). Findings 3DPC walls and Rockwool infilled cavity walls showed superior fire performance. Furthermore, the study indicates that the thermal responses of 3DPC walls exposed to rapid-fire is crucial compared to other fire scenarios. Research limitations/implications To investigate the thermal behaviour, ABAQUS allows performing uncoupled and coupled thermal analysis. Coupled analysis is typically used to investigate combined mechanical-thermal behaviour. Since, considered 3DPC wall configurations are non-load bearing, uncouple heat transfer analysis was performed. Time-temperature variations can be obtained to study the thermal response of 3DPC walls. Originality/value At present, there is limited study to analyse the behaviour of 3DPC composite wall panels in real fire scenarios. Hence, this paper presents an investigation on the fire performance of 3DPC composite wall panels subjected to different fire scenarios. This research is the first attempt to extensively study the fire performance of non-load bearing 3DPC walls.

Finite Element Modelling to Predict the Fire Performance of Bio-Inspired 3D-Printed Concrete Wall Panels Exposed to Realistic Fire

“…Though the standard fire curve has been used for centuries to determine the FRL of building elements, the actual FRL of building components subjected to real fires are considerably less than those obtained from standard fire tests [40,47]. Hence, the ISO 834 standard fire test regulations are not suitable for evaluating the fire performance of 3D-printed concrete walls in terms of establishing the highest temperature and the corresponding time taken to reach this highest temperature level [50].…”

“…Therefore, researchers previously investigated some 3D-printed concrete non-load-bearing wall panels with different cross-sectional configurations, such as triangular, lattice, and sinusoid, with a focus on investigating fire resistance and thermal behaviour under standard fire conditions and different real fire circumstances. (i.e., hydrocarbon fire, rapid fire, and prolonged fire) [16,17,30,50].…”

Determination of elevated temperature material properties by ANN-based FE model

“…Material properties of the structural member are required to evaluate the fire performance. These material properties are temperature-dependent for most materials (Perera et al ., 2021; Suntharalingam et al ., 2021b; Upasiri et al ., 2020, 2021c). Among these properties, thermal conductivity, specific heat and material density are more critical since heat transfer through the material is governed by these properties.…”

“…Integrity criteria evaluate whether the hot gas or fire flame is penetrated to the unexposed surface through cracks propagated during the fire exposure. Load-bearing criteria evaluate the load-carrying capacity of the structural member during fire exposure (Perera et al ., 2021, 2022; Suntharalingam et al ., 2021a, 2021b; Upasiri et al ., 2020, 2021a, 2021b). Material properties of the structural member are required to evaluate the fire performance.…”