Modelling of the Cardington LBTF steel frame building fire tests

Abstract

AbstractThe design of multi‐storey steel framed office and other commercial buildings for fire resistance has traditionally been undertaken on the premise that the building will suffer partial or total collapse unless the beams and columns are insulated from temperature rise under fully developed fire conditions. Since 1990, a growing body of evidence has shown that there is a substantial inelastic reserve of strength available from a typical composite steel beam/concrete floor slab system with uninsulated beams. An intensive research effort is underway in a number of countries to determine the extent of this reserve of strength and the mechanisms involved in its delivery. The research discussed in this paper involves experimental testing and advanced finite element (FE) modelling. It is leading on to design procedure development to take account of the inelastic reserve of strength available from this type of building system.This paper describes advanced finite element analyses undertaken on the complete building system of an eight‐storey steel framed building subject to severe fire conditions. This building is located at the Cardington Large Building Test Facility in the UK and was subjected to a number of large‐scale fire burnout tests in 1995 and 1996. The test programme included a number of large‐scale fire tests using wood cribs and office furniture as the fuel.Three of the large scale fire tests were modelled, covering different enclosure characteristics and fire conditions. The paper gives an overview of the model used and compares the analytical results with those obtained experimentally. Differences between the results are noted and some explanations given for these. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.