Survivability of steel frame structures subject to blast and fire

Abstract

The lesson learned from the terrorist attacks on buildings is the need to assure structures’ ability to sustain local damage without total collapse. Some of the terrorist attacks take the form of blast followed by fire which may cause catastrophic failure of the structure. This paper presents a numerical model for analyzing steel frame structures subject to localized damage caused by blast load and subsequently investigating their survivability under fire attack. The proposed numerical method adopts a mixed-element approach for modeling large-scale framework and it is proven to be sufficiently accurate for capturing the detailed behaviour of member and frame instability associated with the effects of high-strain rate and fire temperature. Design implications related to the use of various numerical models for separate assessment of blast and fire resistance of steel structures and their components are discussed. Fire–blast interaction diagrams are generated to determine the fire resistance of columns considering the initial damage caused by the blast loads. A multi-storey steel building frame is analyzed so that the complex interaction effects of blast and fire can be understood and quantified. The frame is found to be vulnerable, as it possesses little fire resistance due to the deformation of key structural elements caused by the high blast load.