Structural Fire Resistance Experimental Research – Priority Needs of U.S. Industry provides a synthesis of stakeholder input to a prioritized agenda for research at the National Fire Research Laboratory (NFRL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) designed to accelerate the implementation of performance-based fire engineering for structures. The NFRL presents a broad range of unanswered questions regarding the performance of real structures in fire conditions, and informs performance-based design methods and standards in this field. The authors conducted a comprehensive literature review of large-scale structural fire testing and compiled research needs from a variety of sources. The book addresses major issues of broad concern in the fire community, such as real fire exposure and structural response, composite floor system performance, enhancing modeling performance, and understanding the embedded safety features in design methods. It concludes with a prioritized set of research recommendations for the NIST facility. The scope of issues addressed and broad range of content make this a valuable book for researchers in all aspects of fire resistance experimentation. It will also be useful for those who work with engineering standards for structures.

This white paper presents the current, international, state-of-the-art large-scale experimental, modeling, and performance-based design (PBD) efforts related to structural fire resistance of concrete structures. The paper addresses these topics with emphasis on research and development needs for large-scale experiments on fire resistance of structures to support performance-based engineering and structure-fire model validation; prioritizing those needs; phasing the needs in terms of near, medium and long term; identifying the most appropriate international laboratory facilities and collaborators available to address each need; identifying possible means to transfer the results of research to industry; and identifying a means for the coalition of international partners to review progress and exchange information on a regular basis.

Material Properties of Steel Fire Conditions is a major new contribution on how to understand the material properties of steel in fires. The application of new types of steel and development of sophisticated codes of practice has grown dramatically in recent years, making this a timely resource on the topic. Under fire conditions, knowing the material properties of steel is essential in the fire resistance design of steel structures, such as in Eurocode3. This book shows that the reduction factors of mechanical properties of different steels are quite different. In recent years, the authors of this book have carried out significant testing on the material properties of several types of steels, such as Q460 steel, Q690 steel and A992 steel, etc. Users will find this new test data on the material properties of steel with temperature useful in evaluating the fire resistance of steel structures in their own projects. Deals with the material properties of steels in fire conditions, including thermal properties and mechanical properties, such as thermal conductivity, strength, elastic modulus and creep behavior Provides basic knowledge to perform fire resistance design of steel structures Presents information useful to designers, researches and students who must conduct fire resistance design or perform structural analyses on high strength steel structures

The study was commissioned to analyze the needs and existing capabiliites for full-scale fire resistance testing of structural connections. The scope of work consisted of three separate tasks. Task 1. Identification of building collapse incidents: The objective of this Task was to conduct a survey of historical information of fire occurences in multi-story (defined as four or more stories) buildings, which resulted in structural collapse. Either partial or total failure of the structural framing members, and/or connections was considered to hav constituted a collapse. Task 2. Survey of fire resistence test facilities: The objective of this task was to survey private and public facilities (for-profit, not-for-profit; academic, local, state and federal government; military and civilian; domestic and international) capable of testing structural integrity of building elements under fire conditions to establish the current global research capabilities in structural fire protection. Task 3. Needs assessment: the objective of this task was to perform an assessment of the need for additional testing and/or experimental facilities to support the development of predictive structural fire protection methods within actual buildings; and if a need does exist, options for meeting those needs.

This thesis studied the effect of aging of intumescent coatings (ICs) on the reliability of protected steel columns in fire condition and developed a probabilistic approach to assess the service life of ICs applied on steel columns. In the study, Monte Carlo simulations were conducted to obtain the reliability index or failure probability of steel columns protected by ICs subjected to compartment fires. The effect of aging of intumescent coatings on the failure probability of protected steel columns was investigated by using variable insulation property of intumescent coatings in the simulation. The test data on aging effect on insulation property of intumescent coatings from literature was used. Based on the reliability analysis, a probabilistic approach is given to determine the service life of intumescent coatings for steel columns. In that approach, the failure probability of the protected steel columns is compared with the target probability of the structural fire design. The approach can also be used for probabilistic analysis of steel columns protected by conventional inert fire protection materials.

This book includes examinations of the role of full-scale buildings in the development of structural design methods and recommendations on improved construction practice and safety of building occupants in the event of fire and explosion.