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This study aims at investigating the effect of bolt hole-making processes on the post-fire behavior of S235 steel plates.

A total of nine steel plates with a single bolt hole are tested. The single bolt holes are fabricated using three different hole-making processes: drilling, waterjet and plasma. Among the nine steel plates, three fabricated specimens are control specimens and are tested at ambient temperature. The six remaining steel plates with a single bolt hole are subjected to a complete heating-cooling cycle and then monotonically loaded until failure. The six fabricated specimens are first heated up to two different temperatures 800 and 925 °C, and then cooled back to the ambient prior to loading.

The results show that after being exposed to post-fire temperatures (800 and 925 °C), the maximum decrease in strength of the S235 steel plate was 6% (at 925 °C), 14% (at 925 °C) and 22% (at 800 °C) when compared to the results of ambient specimens for waterjet, drilled and plasma bolt holes, respectively. For post-fire temperature tests, drilled and waterjet bolt hole-making processes result in having approximately the same load-displacement response, and both have larger strength and ductility than those obtained using plasma cutting.

This study provides preliminary data to guide the steel designers and fabricators in choosing the most suitable hole-making process for fire applications and to quantify the post-fire reduction in capacity of S235 plates.

In this chapter, Jared Thomas, a Nukunu person from the Southern Flinders Ranges and a Research Fellow at the South Australian Museum and University of South Australia, reflects on his efforts to enhance the Fire Exhibit within the Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery [AACG], which has not been updated in 20 years. Thomas draws from an international precedent of involving Indigenous communities in museum displays.

The author outlines the limitations of renovations in terms of budget, space, and Indigenous protocols, while considering the potential impact of the proposed Tarrkarri Centre for First Nations Culture. He emphasises the importance of fostering relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples, allowing Indigenous voices to speak for themselves.

Thomas focusses on the Fire Exhibit, discussing its significance in Aboriginal culture, the lack of contextualisation, and the need for improved representation. He proposes short-term actions such as adding QR-code-based text for context, and long-term ambitions like incorporating audio-visual and augmented reality elements. He highlights the importance of Aboriginal fire land management practices, especially in the aftermath of the 2019 Australian bushfires.

Thomas proposes strengthening the exhibit’s connection to foods, medicines, and fixatives that benefit from cultural burning. He envisions collaboration with the Adelaide Botanic Gardens and acknowledges the resource constraints faced by the museum. He concludes by envisioning a template for extending improvements across the museum and fostering better understanding and representation of Aboriginal culture.

This study investigates the impact of the fire decay phase on structural damage using the sectional analysis method. The primary objective of this work is to forecast the non-dimensional capacity parameters for the axial and flexural load-carrying capacity of reinforced concrete (RC) sections for heating and the subsequent post-heating phase (decay phase) of the fire.

The sectional analysis method is used to determine the moment and axial capacities. The findings of sectional analysis and heat transfer for the heating stage are initially validated, and the analysis subsequently proceeds to determine the load capacity during the fire’s heating and decay phases by appropriately incorporating non-dimensional sectional and material parameters. The numerical analysis includes four fire curves with different cooling rates and steel percentages.

The study’s findings indicate that the rate at which the cooling process occurs after undergoing heating substantially impacts the axial and flexural capacity. The maximum degradation in axial and flexural capacity occurred in the range of 15–20% for cooling rates of 3 °C/min and 5 °C/min as compared to the capacity obtained at 120 min of heating for all steel percentages. As the fire cooling rate reduced to 1 °C/min, the highest deterioration in axial and flexural capacity reached 48–50% and 42–46%, respectively, in the post-heating stage.

The established non-dimensional parameters for axial and flexural capacity are limited to the analysed section in the study owing to the thermal profile, however, this can be modified depending on the section geometry and fire scenario.

The study primarily focusses on the degradation of axial and flexural capacity at various time intervals during the entire fire exposure, including heating and cooling. The findings obtained showed that following the completion of the fire’s heating phase, the structural capacity continued to decrease over the subsequent post-heating period. It is recommended that structural members' fire resistance designs encompass both the heating and cooling phases of a fire. Since the capacity degradation varies with fire duration, the conventional method is inadequate to design the load capacity for appropriate fire safety. Therefore, it is essential to adopt a performance-based approach while designing structural elements' capacity for the desired fire resistance rating. The proposed technique of using non-dimensional parameters will effectively support predicting the load capacity for required fire resistance.

The fire-resistant requirements for reinforced concrete structures are generally established based on standard fire exposure conditions, which account for the fire growth phase. However, it is important to note that concrete structures can experience internal damage over time during the decay phase of fires, which can be quantitatively determined using the proposed non-dimensional parameter approach.

This study examines the effect of temperature-dependent material models for normal-strength (NSC) and high-strength concrete (HSC) on the thermal analysis of reinforced concrete (RC) walls.

The study performs an one-at-a-time (OAT) sensitivity analysis to assess the impact of variables defining the constitutive and parametric fire models on the wall's thermal response. Moreover, it extends the sensitivity analysis to a variance-based analysis to assess the effect of constitutive model type, fire model type and constitutive model uncertainty on the RC wall's thermal response variance. The study determines the wall’s thermal behaviour reliability considering the different constitutive models and their uncertainty.

It is found that the impact of the variability in concrete’s conductivity is determined by its temperature-dependent model, which differs for NSC and HSC. Therefore, more testing and improving material modelling are needed. Furthermore, the heating rate of the fire scenario is the dominant factor in deciding fire-resistance performance because it is a causal factor for spalling in HSC walls. And finally the reliability of wall's performance decreased sharply for HSC walls due to the expected spalling of the concrete and loss of cross-section integrity.

Limited studies in the current open literature quantified the impact of constitutive models on the behaviour of RC walls. No studies have examined the effect of material models' uncertainty on wall’s response reliability under fire. Furthermore, the study's results contribute to the ongoing attempts to shape performance-based structural fire engineering.

This review paper seeks to enhance knowledge of how pre-loading affects reinforced concrete (RC) beams under fire. It investigates key factors like deflection and load capacity to understand pre-loading's role in replicating RC beams' actual responses to fire, aiming to improve fire testing protocols and structural fire engineering design.

This review systematically aggregates data from existing literature on the fire response of RC beams, comparing scenarios with (WP) and without pre-loading (WOP). Through statistical tools like the two-tailed t-test and Mann–Whitney U-test, it assesses deflection extremes. The study further examines structural responses, including flexural and shear behavior, ultimate load capacity, post-yield behavior, stiffness degradation and failure modes. The approach concludes with a statistical forecast of ideal pre-load levels to elevate experimental precision and enhance fire safety standards.

The review concludes that pre-loading profoundly affects the fire response of RC beams, suggesting a 35%–65% structural capacity range for realistic simulations. The review also recommended the initial crack load as an alternative metric for determining the pre-loading impact. Crucially, it highlights that pre-loading not only influences the fire response but also significantly alters the overall structural behavior of the RC beams.

The review advances structural fire engineering with an in-depth analysis of pre-loading's impact on RC beams during fire exposure, establishing a validated pre-load range through thorough statistical analysis and examination of previous research. It refines experimental methodologies and structural design accuracy, ultimately bolstering fire safety protocols.

In this paper, the seismic behavior of the gusset plate moment connection (GPMC) exposed to the post-earthquake fire (PEF) is investigated.

For this purpose, for the sake of verification, first, a numerical model is built using ABAQUS software and then exposed to earthquakes and high temperatures. Afterward, the effects of a series of parameters, such as gusset plate thickness, gap width, steel grade, vertical load value and presence of the stiffeners, are evaluated on the behavior of the connection in the PEF conditions.

Based on the results obtained from the parametric study, all parameters effectively played a role against the seismic loads, although, when exposed to fire, it was found that the vertical load value and presence of the stiffener revealed a great contribution and the other parameters could not significantly affect the connection performance. Finally, to develop the modeling and further study the performance of the connection, the 4 and 8-story frames are subjected to 11 accelerograms and 3 different fire scenarios. The findings demonstrate that high temperatures impose rotations on the structure, such that the story drifts were changed compared to the post-earthquake drift values.

The obtained results can be used by engineers to design the GPMC for the combined action of earthquake and fire.

Intumescent coatings are nowadays a dominant passive system used to protect structural materials in case of fire. Due to their reactive swelling behaviour, intumescent coatings are particularly complex materials to be modelled and predicted, which can be extremely useful especially for performance-based fire safety designs. In addition, many parameters influence their performance, and this challenges the definition and quantification of their material properties. Several approaches and models of various complexities are proposed in the literature, and they are reviewed and analysed in a critical literature review.

Analytical, finite-difference and finite-element methods for modelling intumescent coatings are compared, followed by the definition and quantification of the main physical, thermal, and optical properties of intumescent coatings: swelled thickness, thermal conductivity and resistance, density, specific heat capacity, and emissivity/absorptivity.

The study highlights the scarce consideration of key influencing factors on the material properties, and the tendency to simplify the problem into effective thermo-physical properties, such as effective thermal conductivity. As a conclusion, the literature review underlines the lack of homogenisation of modelling approaches and material properties, as well as the need for a universal modelling method that can generally simulate the performance of intumescent coatings, combine the large amount of published experimental data, and reliably produce fire-safe performance-based designs.

Due to their limited applicability, high complexity and little comparability, the presented literature review does not focus on analysing and comparing different multi-component models, constituted of many model-specific input parameters. On the contrary, the presented literature review compares various approaches, models and thermo-physical properties which primarily focusses on solving the heat transfer problem through swelling intumescent systems.

The presented literature review analyses and discusses the various modelling approaches to describe and predict the behaviour of swelling intumescent coatings as fire protection for structural materials. Due to the vast variety of available commercial products and potential testing conditions, these data are rarely compared and combined to achieve an overall understanding on the response of intumescent coatings as fire protection measure. The study highlights the lack of information and homogenisation of various modelling approaches, and it underlines the research needs about several aspects related to the intumescent coating behaviour modelling, also providing some useful suggestions for future studies.

This study focused on identifying critical factors governing the fire response of prestressed hollow-core slabs. The hollow-core slabs used as flooring units can be subjected to elevated temperatures during a fire. The fire response of prestressed hollow-core slabs is required to develop slabs with greater fire endurance. The present study aims to determine the extent to which the hollow-core slab can sustain load during a fire without undergoing progressive collapse under extreme fire and heating scenarios.

A finite element model was generated to predict the fire response of prestressed hollow core slabs under elevated temperatures. The accuracy of the model was predicted by examining thermal and structural responses through coupled temperature displacement analysis. A sensitivity analysis was performed to study the effects of concrete properties on prediction of system response. A parametric study was conducted by varying the thickness of the slab, fire and heating scenarios.

Thermal conductivity and specific heat of concrete were determined as sensitive parameters. The thickness of the slab was identified as a critical factor at a higher load level. Asymmetric heating of the slab resulted in higher fire resistance compared with symmetric heating.

This is the first study focused on studying the effect of modeling uncertainties on the system response by sensitivity analysis under elevated temperatures. The developed model with a parametric study helps in identifying critical factors for design purposes.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a comprehensive study on building, fire and evacuation, so as to effectively improve the efficiency of building fire evacuation and the management level of fire evacuation site. Make up for the difficulties of BIM technology in effectively connecting building information and fire data.

First, this paper establishes a fire model and an evacuation model based on BIM information. Then, the safety index (SI) is introduced as a comprehensive index, and the IRI is established by integrating the SI function to evaluate the safety of evacuation routes. Based on these two indices, the IRI-based fire evacuation model is established.

This study offers an Improved Risk Index (IRI)-based fire evacuation model, which may achieve effective evacuation in fire scenes. And the model is verified by taking the fire evacuation of a shopping center building as an example.

This paper proposes a fire evacuation principle based on IRI, so that the relevant personnel can comprehensively consider the fire factors and evacuation factors to achieve the optimization of building design, thereby improving the fire safety of buildings.

We investigate how firing notification procedures influence wage growth. Using a sample of 33 countries over the period 2006–2015, we show that administrative requirements in cases of dismissal have a positive and significant effect on wage growth. The result is robust even after controlling for the endogeneity of the firing notification restrictions, the involvement of third parties in the wage bargaining process, the minimum wage, the firms' training policy, and the composition of employment. These findings suggest that firing notification procedures foster the growth of wages by increasing the bargaining power of incumbent workers.