Firewalls and post-earthquake fire resistance of reinforced-concrete frames

Behnam, Behrouz; Ronagh, Hamid Reza

doi:10.1680/stbu.14.00031

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 63 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Since postdisaster reconstruction research is dominated by STEM (National Research Council, 2006), it also principally orients the architectural motivation toward the physical aspect of human settlement. In fact, collaborating with STEM professionals, architectural approaches are primarily committed to the advancement of the structural safety, such as improving building codes (Behnam & Ronagh, 2016), designing new structural systems and materials (Kwon & Elnashai, 2006), and protecting critical infrastructures, such as roads, power, water, and telecom systems (Ouyang, 2014). These strategies guarantee that when a disaster hits, disaster survivors' basic living requirements, such as access to water, food, and power are secured.…”

Section: Architectural Interventions For Building Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience in Postdisaster Reconstruction of Human Settlement

Wu¹

2021

Multisystemic Resilience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Disaster resilience is an ongoing learning process for individuals, families, communities, and society in general to prepare for, respond to, adapt to, and recover from disaster events. This capacity requires a synthesis of multiple elements, including natural, built, social, cultural, economic, and political environments. Architects are on the front line to facilitate postdisaster reconstruction of human settlement, overseeing the quality of structural and infrastructural systems to better support the various social and humanitarian recovery efforts. From the architectural perspective of disaster research and practice, this chapter examines various aspects of building resilience in human settlement. Using the post-Wenchuan earthquake reconstruction initiative in China as an example, this chapter illustrates how the lack of balance among different societal factors (such as social, economic, and cultural) in built environment reconstruction directly damages other aspects of recovery, which significantly delays the capacity-building process of resilience.

show abstract

Section: Architectural Interventions For Building Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience in Postdisaster Reconstruction of Human Settlement

Wu¹

2021

Multisystemic Resilience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the second paper, Behnam and Ronagh (2016) investigate the post-earthquake fire resistance of a two-bay reinforcedconcrete portal frame. Following a post-earthquake firewall break down, the paper computationally assesses three fire exposure scenarios: only the left part of the frame exposed, only the right part of the frame exposed and the entire frame exposed.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Editorial

Ashour¹

2016

Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Structures

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

and the UK, demonstrating the international reach of the journal.The first paper by Johnston et al. (2016) describes a full-scale site fire test performed on a cold-formed steel portal frame building with semi-rigid joints, complemented with finiteelement modelling. The total length of the building was 10 m, comprising five frames spaced at 2·5 m. Each frame had a span of 8 m, height to eaves of 2·2 m and pitch of 10°. The fire test was carried out by several international experts from four research institutions, namely Queen's University Belfast, Curtin University, University of Strathclyde and Ecosteel, benefitting from unique fire testing facilities at Curtin University, Malaysia. In the full-scale fire test, the building collapsed asymmetrically at a temperature of 714°C. The paper also presents the development of a non-linear elasto-plastic finiteelement shell model for the building in fire. After model validation against the results of the full-scale fire test, a comprehensive parametric study is conducted, highlighting the importance of in-plane restraint from the side rails in preventing an outwards sway failure for both a single portal and full building geometry model. The study also demonstrates the importance of modelling the semi-rigidity of various joints in design.In the second paper, Behnam and Ronagh (2016) investigate the post-earthquake fire resistance of a two-bay reinforcedconcrete portal frame. Following a post-earthquake firewall break down, the paper computationally assesses three fire exposure scenarios: only the left part of the frame exposed, only the right part of the frame exposed and the entire frame exposed. Two action scenarios are also considered; the frame is first pushed to displacement corresponding to the life safety level of performance based on FEMA356 code, followed by a natural fire curve, whereas the second assumes a fire-alone analysis to provide a point of reference. The finite-element simulation shows that no failure occurs in any of the fire-alone scenarios, or when exposing the smaller part of the building to the post-earthquake fire, but exposing the larger part and the entire frame to post-earthquake fire causes frame collapse at around 50 min and 25 min, respectively. The investigation shows the importance of firewalls to reduce vulnerability of reinforced-concrete buildings in case of postearthquake fire.The third paper by Cairns and Goodchild (2016) reports on an experimental investigation into the performance of lapped steel joints in structural concrete. The paper considers the effect of three different parameters, namely concrete cover, proportion of bars lapped at a section and relative size of bars within a lapped pair. However, the main focus of the paper is to evaluate the reduction in lap strength where minimum concrete cover, as specified by Eurocode 2, is reduced below one bar diameter. The authors conclude that lap strength is decreased by approximately 12% when the bottom cover is reduced from 1·2 to 0·6 times bar diameter. It is also found that lap ...

show abstract

Fire performance of earthquake-damaged reinforced concrete columns: an experimental study

Chinthapalli

Agarwal

2021

JSFE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PurposeEarthquake tremors not only increase the chances of fire ignition but also hinder the fire-fighting efforts due to the damage to the lifelines of a city. Most of the international codes have independent recommendations for structural safety against earthquake and fire. However, the possibility of a multi-hazard event, such as fire following an earthquake is seldom addressed.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents an experimental study of Reinforced Concrete (RC) columns in post-earthquake fire (PEF) conditions. An experimental approach is proposed that allows the testing of a column instead of a full structural frame. This approach allows us to control the loading and boundary conditions individually and facilitates the testing under a variety of these conditions. Also, it allows the structure to be tested until failure. The role of parameters, such as earthquake intensity, axial load ratio and the ductile detailing of the column on the earthquake damage and subsequently the fire performance of the structure, is studied in this research. Six RC column specimens are tested under a sequence of quasi-static earthquake loading, followed by combined fire and axial compression loading conditions.FindingsThe experiment results indicate that ductile detailed columns subjected to 4% or less lateral drift did not lose significant load-carrying capacity in fire conditions. A lateral drift of 6% caused significant damage to the columns and reduced the load-carrying capacity in fire conditions. The level of the axial load acting on the column at the time of earthquake loading was found to have a very significant effect on the extent of damage and reduction in column load capacity in fire conditions. The columns that were not detailed for a ductile behavior observed a more significant reduction in axial load carrying capacity in fire conditions.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is limited to columns of 230 mm size due to the limitations of the test setup. The applicability of these findings to larger column sections needs to be verified by developing a numerical analysis methodology and simulating other post-earthquake-fire tests available in the literature.Originality/valueThe experimental procedure proposed in this paper offers an alternative to the testing of a complete structural frame system for PEF behavior. In addition to the ease of conducting the tests, the procedure also allows much better control over the heating, structural loading and boundary conditions.

show abstract

Firewalls and post-earthquake fire resistance of reinforced-concrete frames

Cited by 3 publications

References 63 publications

Resilience in Postdisaster Reconstruction of Human Settlement

Resilience in Postdisaster Reconstruction of Human Settlement

Editorial

Fire performance of earthquake-damaged reinforced concrete columns: an experimental study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About