Parametric Study on Composite Beams with Web Openings Fire Protected with Reactive Intumescent Coating

When service ducts and cables are required to pass through the structural beams,it is a common practical solution to use composite beams with rectangular or circular openings.The fire safety standards in many countries have recommended design methods for composite beams without openings,while the design method for composite beams with web openings is not addressed yet.Due to the complicated distribution of temperature and stress around the openings in the web of the steel beam,extra complexity has been introduced in determination of the structural capability of the beam and the failure mode in fire.These failure modes generally occur at lower limiting temperatures than the solid beam with same size.It is recognized that the thickness of a reactive coating required to provide a given fire resistance to a composite beam with web openings is affected by the beam’s web thickness,opening configuration,the degree of the beam asymmetry and the structural utilization factor,as well as the nature of the proprietary fire protection itself.Therefore it is necessary that such beams are structurally evaluated taking into account all possible modes of structural failure under both ambient and fire conditions.It is also necessary for additional thermal data to be measured around the web openings and on the web posts from fire tests.The additional thermal data will be used in conjunction with a structural model to determine limiting temperatures of beams with web openings.Steel Construction Institute(SCI)has produced a structural analysis model referenced as report RT1356,which divides a composite beam with web openings into different stress blocks,and then analyses the global bending,vertical shear,local Vierendeel bending,web-post buckling etc.The Association for Specialist Fire Protection(ASFP)recommended the test protocol in the Yellow Book,to determine the temperature distribution around the openings and web post.This paper will discuss a series of fire tests having been carried out in the laboratory of EXOVA Warringtonfire to establish temperature distribution in composite beams with web openings.Test result shows that the distribution of temperature is product specific and strongly affected by opening configuration and opening distance.EXOVA Warringtonfire has also developed a sophisticated calculator,ThermCalc,for analyzing temperature and structural following the method presented in RT1356.Using ThermCalc,parametric study has been carried out,and the effect of load utilization factor,opening size,opening distance,slab depth,decking configuration etc.was investigated.

Investigation on the Fire Resistance of Cellular Steel Beam with Sinusoidal Openings

This paper investigated the fire resistance of CSBs with various parameters under high temperature rise due to fire using finite element software ABAQUS. The mechanical parameters of CSBs are analyzed, including load-bearing capacity and the temperature distribution during the heating process. Through structural analysis simulation of the entire heating process, the structural response of the CSBs is divided into five stages: elastic stage, elastic-plastic stage, self-balancing stage, catenary stage and ultimate destruction stage. The results indicate that the opening diameter-to-height ratio, opening spacing-to-height ratio and load ratio significantly affect the structural responses of CSBs in fire, followed by opening shape as secondary effects. In all the numerical analyzes, CSBs are analyzed with a uniformly distributed load and having simply supported boundary conditions.