Thermo-mechanical Analysis of Fire Doors Subjected to a Fire Endurance Test

Abstract

Fires doors are subjected to standard fire tests as a means of evaluating fire resistance. In this study, the thermal and mechanical response of steel double fire doors exposed to high temperatures was modeled using finite element software. The model included the necessary complexity of the product and test setup along with the temperature dependency of the constituent materials. For the thermal solution, a transient analysis was carried out while for the mechanical solution, it was found that a nonlinear steady state analysis was sufficient to capture the qualitative behavior of the fire doors seen during the test. The challenges of validating a numerical model with the limited data available from the standard fire test are described.

Numerical Modeling of Fire Resistance Test as a Tool to Design Lightweight Marine Fire Doors: A Preliminary Study

“…Both analyses are non-linear as the materials' properties depend on temperature. The thermal analysis was performed both in unsteady-and steady-state conditions, while the structural analysis was performed only in steady-state conditions: the key constituent materials of the fire door were not viscoelastic; thus, the deformation history did not significantly influence the final deformations at the maximum temperature [7].…”

“…The geometry has been discretized ( Figure 2) using hexahedral elements (3D) for the insulating material, and quadrilateral (2D) elements for components that have thickness negligible with respect to the other dimensions (e.g., door sheets, frame, bulkhead, and stiffeners). In the literature, it has already been shown that 2D elements, in addition to being computationally more efficient [7], give the same results as 3D elements [14]. The time step of the unsteady analysis was defined using an adaptive method: setting as input an initial time step, the software automatically calculated the subsequent time steps based on the convergence conditions.…”

“…For the insulating material, the temperature dependence was considered only for the thermal conductivity; the insulating material had no significant structural contribution [7], so the mechanical properties were considered constant for simplicity. The rock-wool properties as reported in the datasheet (Table 1) were integrated with experimental measurements.…”

“…The performance of fire-proof doors in the fire tests has been addressed both experimentally and using numerical modeling [3][4][5][6][7][8]: these simulations were typically aimed at reproducing the experimental results and assessing the computational methods. However, Izydorczyk et al [9] highlighted the variability of the results after testing the effects of several fire-door construction parameters and materials on the fire-resistance performance.…”

Thermal and mechanical transient behaviour of steel doors installed in non‐load‐bearing partition wall assemblies during exposure to the standard fire test

“…Tabaddor et al reported an investigation into the fire performance of a double‐leaf steel door in a rigid masonry supporting wall. The complexity and difficulties involved in predicting and validating the behaviour of such door systems were highlighted.…”