Effect of travelling fire on structural response of a generic steel fire protected moment resisting frame

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To simulate a fire inside large compartments, there is a pioneering method called ‘traveling fire’. As steel structures are vulnerable to high temperatures, they are normally fireproofed by insulation materials appropriate for a specific duration of time. An investigation is performed here to examine the robustness of a generic fourstory moment-resisting steel structure, fireproofed to comply with the one hour standard curve, when it is subjected to traveling fire. The results show that while no collapse occurs during the 12.5%, 50% and 100%, the structure collapses under the 25% fire size at 75 min. This seems to be in contradiction with traditional belief, where it is assumed that taking into consideration a larger-scale fire in a compartment would increase the safety margin. The investigation performed also underlines that the fireproofing of structures does not necessarily provide adequate resistance under traveling fires.