Experimental study on fire resistance of a full-scale composite floor assembly in a two-story steel framed building
Journal of Structural Fire Engineering
ISSN: 2040-2317
Article publication date: 7 October 2021
Issue publication date: 29 April 2022
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report the first of four planned fire experiments on the 9.1 × 6.1 m steel composite floor assembly as part of the two-story steel framed building constructed at the National Fire Research Laboratory.
Design/methodology/approach
The fire experiment was aimed to quantify the fire resistance and behavior of full-scale steel–concrete composite floor systems commonly built in the USA. The test floor assembly, designed and constructed for the 2-h fire resistance rating, was tested to failure under a natural gas fueled compartment fire and simultaneously applied mechanical loads.
Findings
Although the protected steel beams and girders achieved matching or superior performance compared to the prescribed limits of temperatures and displacements used in standard fire testing, the composite slab developed a central breach approximately at a half of the specified rating period. A minimum area of the shrinkage reinforcement (60 mm2/m) currently permitted in the US construction practice may be insufficient to maintain structural integrity of a full-scale composite floor system under the 2-h standard fire exposure.
Originality/value
This work was the first-of-kind fire experiment conducted in the USA to study the full system-level structural performance of a composite floor system subjected to compartment fire using natural gas as fuel to mimic a standard fire environment.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was conducted as part of the project “Measurement of Structural Performance in Fire” under the NIST Engineering Laboratory's Fire Risk Reduction in Building Programs. The authors thank William Baker (Skidmore, Owings and Merrill), Craig Beyler (Jensen Hughes), Luke Bisby (University of Edinburgh), Ian Burgess (University of Sheffield), Charles Carter (AISC), Charles Clifton (University of Auckland), Michael Engelhardt (University of Texas), Graeme Flint (Arup), Nestor Iwankiw (Jensen Hughes), Kevin LaMalva (Warringtonfire), Roberto Leon (Virginia Tech.) and Amit Varma (Purdue University) for their expert consultation. The authors also thank the NIST colleagues, including Brian Story, Laurean DeLauter, Anthony Chakalis, Philip Deardorff, Marco Fernandez, Artur Chernovsky, Michael Selepak, Rodney Bryant, Chao Zhang, Jonathan Weigand, Joseph Main and Fahim Sadek, for their significant contributions to design, construction and execution of this test program.
Citation
Choe, L., Ramesh, S., Dai, X., Hoehler, M. and Bundy, M. (2022), "Experimental study on fire resistance of a full-scale composite floor assembly in a two-story steel framed building", Journal of Structural Fire Engineering, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 145-161. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSFE-05-2021-0030
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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