Premium
An extended travelling fire method framework for performance‐based structural design
Author(s) -
Dai Xu,
Welch Stephen,
Vassart Olivier,
Cábová Kamila,
Jiang Liming,
Maclean Jamie,
Clifton George Charles,
Usmani Asif
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
fire and materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.482
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1099-1018
pISSN - 0308-0501
DOI - 10.1002/fam.2810
Subject(s) - parametric statistics , fire test , emissivity , structural engineering , thermal , fire performance , combustibility , radiative transfer , inverse , convective heat transfer , dimension (graph theory) , environmental science , convection , computer science , engineering , mechanics , meteorology , mathematics , materials science , fire resistance , combustion , geometry , statistics , physics , chemistry , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics , optics , composite material , pure mathematics
Summary This paper presents the extended travelling fire method (ETFM) framework, which considers both energy and mass conservation for the fire design of large compartments. To identify its capabilities and limitations, the framework is demonstrated in representing the travelling fire scenario in the Veselí Travelling Fire Test. The comparison between the framework and the test is achieved through performing a numerical investigation of the thermal response of the structural elements. The framework provides good characterization of maximum steel temperatures and the relative timing of thermal response curves along the travelling fire trajectory, though it does not currently address a non‐uniform fire spread rate. The test conditions are then generalized for parametric studies, which are used to quantify the impact of other design parameters, including member emissivity, convective heat transfer coefficient, total/radiative heat loss fractions, fire spread rate, fire load density, and various compartment opening dimension parameters. Within the constraints of this study, the inverse opening factor and total heat loss prove to be the most critical parameters for structural fire design.