• Geosystem Engineering
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.282-290
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• 2018

The onset of extreme fire behaviour in a mine drift with longitudinal ventilation was analysed. A fire in a mine drift with continuous fuel load, involving several separate fires may lead to flames tilted horizontally and filling up the entire cross section. This will lead to earlier ignition, higher fire growth rate, higher fire spread rate and a severe fire behaviour. The focus has been on what changes take place at the onset and signs of the impending phenomenon. It was found that the fire gas temperature at the ceiling level provided a poor indicator. At the downstream far-field region of the fire, the sudden temperature increase at the lowest levels of the cross section and the sudden increase in flow velocities would provide signs of extreme fire behaviour. The corresponding full-scale heat release rates of the experiments at the onset of extreme fire behaviour were found to be very high for mining applications but not necessarily for tunnel fires. The heat release rate threshold for a mine drift with smaller cross-sectional dimensions would decrease considerably, increasing the likelihood of occurrence. The distance between the fuel items will play an important role during the initiation of horizontal flames.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.153-168
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• 2003

This paper discusses the results and observations from a large-scale fire test conducted on a slim floor system, comprising asymmetric beams, rectangular hollow section beams and a composite floor slab. The structure was subjected to a fire where the fire load (combustible material) was higher that that found in typical office buildings and the ventilation area was artificially controlled during the test. Although the fire behaviour was not realistic it was designed to follow as closely as possible the time-temperature response used in standard fire tests, which are used to assess individual structural members and forms the bases of current fire design methods. The presented test results are limited, due to the malfunction of the instrumentation measuring the atmosphere and member temperatures. The lack of test data hinders the presentation of definitive conclusions. However, the available data, together with observations from the test, provides for the first time a useful insight into the behaviour of the slim floor system in its entirety. Analysis of the test results show that the behaviour of the beam-to-column connections had a significant impact on the overall structural response of the system, particularly when the end-plate of one of the connections fractured, during the fire.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.637-647
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• 2018

Numerical approach using finite element method has been used to evaluate the behaviour of reinforced concrete frame structure subjected to fire. The structure is previously designed in accordance with Eurocode standards for the design of structures for earthquake resistance, for the ductility class M. Thermal and structural response are obtained using a commercially available software ANSYS. Temperature-dependent nonlinear thermal and mechanical properties are adopted according to Eurocode standards, with the application of constitutive model for the triaxial behaviour of concrete with a smeared crack approach. Discrete modelling of concrete and reinforcement has enabled monitoring of the behaviour at a global, as well as at a local level, providing information on the level of damage occurring during fire. Critical regions in frame structures are identified and assessed, based on temperatures, displacements, variations of internal forces magnitudes and achieved plastic deformations of main reinforcement bars. Parametric analyses are conducted for different fire scenarios and different types of concrete aggregate to determine their effect on global deformations of frame structures. According to analyses results, the three-dimensional finite element model can be used to evaluate the insulation and mechanical resistance criteria of reinforced concrete frame structures subjected to nominal fire curves.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.298-310
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• 2020

Fuel management can play enormous role in fire management in tropical dry forests. However, unlike the temperate forests, knowledge on implications of different fuel management methods in tropical forests is often inadequate. In this study, the implications of prescribed burning and hand thinning treatments on implementation cost, fuel loading and post-treatment fire behaviour were tested and compared in degraded forests and teak plantations in two forest reserves of different levels of dryness in Ghana. The study found that prescribed burning was less expensive (62.02 US Dollars ha-1) than hand thinning (95.37 US Dollars ha-1). The study also indicated that the two fuel management methods were able to reduce fuel loading in degraded forests and teak plantations. However, prescribed burning was more effective in reducing fuel loading than hand thinning. While the relative change of fuel reduction was 13% higher in prescribed burning than the hand thinning in degraded forest, it was 41% higher in prescribed burning than hand thinning in teak plantations. The fire behaviour of post-treatment experimental fire was also lower in prescribed burning than the hand thinning and control plots. Fuel management, therefore, has a great potential in fire management in degraded forests and teak plantations in Ghana.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.21-39
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• 2013

The paper presents a numerical investigation, done with the computer program SAFIR, in order to obtain simpler finite element models for representing the behaviour of the partially protected composite steel concrete slabs in fire situations, considering the membrane action. Appropriate understanding and modelling of the particular behaviour of composite slabs allows a safe approach, but also substantial savings on the thermal insulation that has to be applied on the underlying steel structure. The influence of some critical parameters on the behaviour and fire resistance of composite slabs such as the amount of reinforcing steel, the thickness of the slab and the edge conditions is also highlighted. The results of the numerical analyses are compared with the results of three full scale fire tests on composite slabs that have been performed in recent years.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.485-513
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• 2005

This paper presents a state-of-the-art on the behaviour of steel joints under fire loading and some recent developments in this field, currently being carried out by the authors. Firstly, a review of the experimental research work on steel joints is presented, subdivided into isolated member tests, sub-structure tests and tests on complete building structures. Special emphasis is placed on the seventh Cardington test, carried out by the authors within a collaborative research project led by the Czech Technical University in Prague. Secondly, a brief review of various temperature distributions within a joint is presented, followed by a discussion of the behaviour of isolated joints at elevated temperature, focussing on failure modes and analytical procedures for predicting the moment-rotation behaviour of joints at elevated temperature. Finally, a description of the coupled behaviour of joints as part of complete structures is presented, describing previous work and investigations on real fire (including heating and cooling phases) currently being carried out by the authors.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.191-208
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• 2009

Observations from experiments and real fire indicate that restrained steel beams have better fire-resistant capability than isolated beams. Due to the effects of restraints, a steel beam in fire condition can undergo very large deflections and the run away damage may be avoided. However disgusting damages may occur in the beam-to-column connections, which is considered to be mainly caused by the enormous axial tensile forces in steel beams resulted from temperature decreasing after fire dies out. Over the past ten years, the behaviour of restrained steel beams subjected to fire during heating has been experimentally and theoretically investigated in detail, and some simplified analytical approaches have been proposed. While the performance of restrained steel beams during cooling has not been so deeply studied. For the safety evaluation and repair of steel structures against fire, more detailed investigation on the behaviour of restrained steel beams subjected to fire during cooling is necessary. When the temperature decreases, the elastic modulus and yield strength of steel recover, and the contraction force in restrained steel beams will be produced. In this paper, an incremental method is proposed for analyzing the behaviour of restrained steel beams subjected to cooling. In each temperature decrement, the development of deformation and internal forces of a restrained beam is divided into four steps, in order to consider the effect of the recovery of the elastic modulus and strength of steel and the contraction force generated by temperature decrease in the beam respectively. At last, the proposed approach is validated by FE method.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.343-362
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• 2018

A simplified spring connection modelling approach for steel flush endplate beam-to-column connections in fire has been developed to enable realistic behaviour of connections to be incorporated into full-scale frame analyses at elevated temperature. Due to its simplicity and reliability, the proposed approach permits full-scale high-temperature frame analysis to be conducted without high computational cost. The proposed simplified spring connection modelling approach has been used to investigate the influence of connection ductility (both axial and rotational) on frame behaviour in fire. 2D steel and 3D composite frames with a range of beam spans were modelled to aid the understanding of the differences in frame response in fire where the beam-to-column connections have different axial and rotational ductility assumptions. The modelling results highlight that adopting the conventional rigid or pinned connection assumptions does not permit the axial forces acting on the connections to be accurately predicted, since the axial ductility of the connection is completely neglected when the rotational ductility is either fully restrained or free. By accounting for realistic axial and rotational ductilities of beam-to-column connections, the frame response in fire can be predicted more accurately, which is advantageous in performance-based structural fire engineering design.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.705-724
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• 2013

The behaviour of steel column at elevated temperature is significantly different than that at ambient temperature due to its changes in the mechanical properties with temperature. Reported literature suggests that steel column may become vulnerable when exposed to fire condition, since its strength and capacity decrease rapidly with temperature. The present study aims at investigating the lateral load resistance of non-insulated steel columns under fire exposure through finite element analysis. The studied parameters include moment-rotation behaviour, lateral load-deflection behaviour, stiffness and ductility of columns at different axial load levels. It was observed that when the temperature of the column was increased, there was a significant reduction in the lateral load and moment capacity of the non-insulated steel columns. Moreover, it was noted that the stiffness and ductility of steel columns decreased sharply with the increase in temperature, especially for temperatures above $400^{\circ}C$. In addition, the lateral load capacity and the moment capacity of columns were plotted against fire exposure time, which revealed that in fire conditions, the non-insulated steel columns experience substantial reduction in lateral load resistance within 15 minutes of fire exposure.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.329-344
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• 2016

In this paper, a methodology to simulate the whole-building behaviour of the tall building under fire is developed by the author using a 3-D nonlinear finite element method. The mechanical and thermal material nonlinearities of the structural members, such as the structural steel members, concrete slabs and reinforcing bars were included in the model. In order to closely simulate the real condition under the conventional fire incident, in the simulation, the fire temperature was applied on level 9, 10 and 11. Then, a numerical investigation on the whole-building response of the building in fire was made. The temperature distribution of the floor slabs, steel beams and columns were predicted. In addition, the behaviours of the structural members under fire such as beam force, column force and deflections were also investigated.