Numerical study on the behaviour of reinforced concrete columns exposed to fire including the cooling phase

Abstract

It has been proven that reinforced concrete (RC) structures subjected to fire are likely to collapse during cooling phase. However, many insights into this phenomenon have not been covered in both research and building codes/standards. This paper presents a quantitative study on the behaviour of RC columns subjected to natural fire including cooling phase, particularly the fire resistance R and burnout resistance DHP of columns. The study adopted Eurocode parametric fire model to simulate the natural fire curve and finite element models in SAFIR to simulate the during-and-post-fire responses of RC columns with various cross-sections. A parametric study on the effects of various factors (concrete cover, load ratio, and reinforcement ratio) on the DHP-R relationship is also presented.