• Architectural research
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2008

A Steel column with damaged spray-applied fire resistive material (SFRM) may exhibit reduced structural performance due to the effects of elevated temperature during fire events. Thus, the fire load behavior of steel columns with removed or reduced SFRM needs to be examined to predict the structural damage by fire. FEM analyses were performed for the flange thinning removal models in which the SFRM was reduced as a constant strip in thickness at the top flange of the column. The temperature results for all models obtained from the heat transfer analyses were included as an initial condition in the FEM structural analyses. In this study, the results of analysis show that even small remnants of SFRM led to an effective reduction of temperature at any given fire duration, and improved significantly the axial load capacity of a column as compared to the complete removal cases of SFRM.