Advanced numerical analyses for the assessment of steel structures under fire

Abstract

The aim of this paper is the analysis of the response to fire of single storey steel structures. The performance-based design allows a more realistic evaluation of fire safety than the usual prescriptive design. Several factors can affect the fire safety assessment. The paper seeks to evaluate some of them. The study of substructure may not be sufficient in some cases for highlighting the actual behaviour of the whole structure. The progression of the collapse has to be traced up to the global collapse of the structure and numerical problems due to the triggering of local mechanisms should be overcome to this purpose. The interaction of the heated elements with the rest of the structure can raise different collapse mechanisms depending on the mutual position of the elements. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model represents an advanced solution to study the development of fire.