Evaluation of the Fire Resistance of H-Section Steel Columns and Beams

Abstract

Building fires can cause severe damages to not only human life but also building structures. Therefore, every nation requires a building regulation related to fire in aspect of safety of human and structural stability. The structural stability under fire condition can be evaluated by the fire test defined in each nation’s standard. However, the results from the test don’t satisfy the real situations of the building such as fire loads, opening size, loading and boundary condition of structural members, and etc. Meanwhile, performance based fire engineering design is regarded as an alternative evaluation method of fire. The fire engineering method has been regarded as a more rational method than the prescriptive method in terms of accuracy and cost efficiency. Recently, the limit temperature method is regarded as the easiest fire engineering method to evaluate the structural stability under fire. To make the backbone of a specification of limiting temperature method, limiting temperatures of various structural members are required. In this paper, in order to make a database of the limiting temperatures of H-section columns and beams, fire test programs with loading were conducted and the limiting temperatures and fire resistance were derived.