Title: Different design approaches to structural fire safety

Authors: Luisa Giuliani; Iwona Budny

Addresses: Civil Engineering Department, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Brovej 118, 2800 Lyngby, Denmark ' Structural Design Software DK, Diplomvej 373, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

Abstract: Fire has always been a major threat for buildings constructions, leading to consequences that can affect both the safety of people and the integrity of the structure. The aim of this paper is to highlight how both safety issues are addressed in the framework of current design practices for fire safety of steel constructions. In particular, three distinct approaches are distinguished and applied to the case study of a steel car park: 1) design for resistance class; 2) design for fully developed fire; 3) advanced design. A systematic analysis of the different aspects of the first two prescriptive approaches and a comparison of the resulting designs is presented. With respect to the third performance-based approach, an example of advanced investigations for fire design is carried on one frame of the car park and a focus is made on the collapse mechanisms of steel frames, such as sway and non-sway collapse modes.

Keywords: structural fire safety design; resistance class; fully developed fires; performance-based fire design; PBFD; steel car parks; nonlinear transient analysis; thermoplastic materials; geometric nonlinearities; collapse mechanisms; sway collapse; non-sway collapse; building design; structural design; steel frames; structural engineering.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLCPE.2013.057560

International Journal of Lifecycle Performance Engineering, 2013 Vol.1 No.2, pp.135 - 158

Accepted: 20 Jul 2012
Published online: 29 Jul 2014 *

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