BEHAVIOUR OF CONCRETE STRUCTURES IN FIRE by

Abstract

This pa per pro vides a “state-of-the-art ” re view of re search into the ef fects of high tem per a ture on con crete and con crete struc tures, ex tend ing to a range of forms of con struc tion, in clud ing novel de vel op ments. The na ture of con crete-based struc tures means that they gen er ally per form very well in fire. How ever, con crete is fun da men tally a com plex ma te rial and its prop er-ties can change dra mat i cally when ex posed to high tem per a tures. The prin-ci pal ef fects of fire on con crete are loss of com pres sive strength, and spalling – the forc ible ejec tion of ma te rial from the sur face of a mem ber. Though a lot of in for ma tion has been gath ered on both phe nom ena, there re mains a need for more sys tem atic stud ies of the ef fects of ther mal ex po-sures. The re sponse to re al is tic fires of whole con crete struc tures pres ents yet greater chal lenges due to the in ter ac tions of struc tural el e ments, the im-pact of com plex small-scale phe nom ena at full scale, and the spa tial and tem po ral vari a tions in ex po sures, in clud ing the cool ing phase of the fire. Prog ress has been made on mod el ling the thermomechanical be hav iour but the treat ment of de tailed be hav iours, in clud ing hygral ef fects and spalling, re mains a chal lenge. Fur ther more, there is still a se vere lack of data from real struc tures for val i da tion, though some valu able in sights may also be gained from study of the per for mance of con crete struc tures in real fires