The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of transient creep on the
structural response of RC columns subjected to natural or parametric fires using a finite
element model developed by the authors. The model, capable of analysing the response of RC
columns from pre-fire stages to collapse in fire environment, is specially developed for the
analysis of RC structures under severe thermo-mechanical loads, which accounts for transient
creep explicitly as an additional component of the total strain of the concrete or implicitly
through the use of the materials’ properties recommended by EC2. Through the obtained
results, it is shown that the transient creep phenomenon significantly influences the fire
response of RC columns. It was also found that the conventional method based on standard
fire exposure may not be conservative if the resulting fire has a decay phase similar to the
severe fire scenario used in this work
