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Procedia Environmental Sciences 38 (2017) 298 – 305

International Conference on Sustainable Synergies from Buildings to the Urban Scale, SBE16

Fire Protection and Sustainability of Structural Steel Buildings with

Double-Shell Brickwork Cladding
M.Z. Bezasa, Th.N. Nikolaidisa,*, C.C. Baniotopoulosb
a
Institute of Metal Structures, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, GR-54124, Greece
b
School of Engineering, University of Birmingham, B15 2TT Birmingham, United Kingdom

Abstract

The proposed paper focuses on the research of sustainability of steel buildings in the case of a double-shell brickwork cladding,
assessed under fire protection criteria and fire performance aspects. More specifically, it concerns an approach in designing and
evaluating the structural components of energy-efficient steel buildings with regards to their fire performance. It is important to
understand what the performance criteria are intended to be applied when selecting a particular material or method, including
exposure to fire, duration, aesthetics, cost and maintenance. Application of insulating materials is one of the most common means
of protecting structural steel members from fire. The knowledge and the practical outcomes about the fire resistance of the steel
buildings with double-brickwork cladding have been derived on the basis of an estimation and evaluation of fire resistance of
several construction details of the building's envelope. The study focuses on the thermal analysis of structural steel members,
whose cross-section consists of the steel member core, the thermal and fire insulation and other layers. Because of the complexity
that governs the equations describing the thermal phenomena, the structural detail models have been studied using finite element
analysis. This is a thermal analysis that permits to quantify the response of the respective structural elements in terms of
temperature with reference to time. The aim of the expected data is to evaluate the position of a steel member in connection with
the double-shell brickwork cladding and promote those construction materials that are efficient under fire taking into account
simultaneously their thermophysical, hydrothermal and environmental properties.
© 2017
© 2017TheTheAuthors.
Authors. Published
Published by Elsevier
by Elsevier B.V. B.V.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of SBE16.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of SBE16.
Keywords: Building envelope; Structural Steel; Fire Protection; Insulating Materials; Double-Shell Brickwork; Thermal analysis

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +030-2310-994223 ; fax: +030-2310-995642 .

E-mail address:thnik@civil.auth.gr

1878-0296 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of SBE16.
doi:10.1016/j.proenv.2017.03.082
 M.Z. Bezas et al. / Procedia Environmental Sciences 38 (2017) 298 – 305 299

Nomenclature

f y ,T Effective yield strength of steel exposed at elevated temperature.

Ea ,T Slope of the linear elastic range of steel exposed at elevated temperature.
k y ,T Reduction factor for effective yield strength of steel exposed at elevated temperature.
kE ,T Reduction factor for effective slope of the linear elastic range of steel exposed at elevated temperature.
Ta Structural steel temperature.

1. Introduction

Passive fire protection is vital to the stability1 and integrity of a steel-framed building in case of fire. Such
protection is applied as a fire protection coat to the steel elements to enhance their fire resistance or is a common
thermal and fire insulation material of the envelope. This research work focuses on the sustainability of steel-framed
buildings, in the case of a double-shell brickwork cladding, assessed under passive fire protection criteria.
The use of insulating materials is one of the most common means of passive protection of the steel-framed
elements (columns and beams) against fire. In this case the influence of all opaque construction elements of the
building’s envelope is worth to be considered and evaluated. The expected data of this research focus on and
estimate the position of a steel-framed member in the external envelope under fire conditions and the outcome is
significant in order to reduce the fire risk of steel-framed buildings.

2. Passive fire protection criteria of steel-framed elements

2.1. Passive fire protection and sustainability

Taking into account that temperature changes in the materials lead to changes in their properties and in particular,
in strength characteristics, a fact that becomes obvious when temperature is significantly increase, the only
possibility to obtain a passive control of steel section strength in fire is to protect it from thermal expansion by an
appropriately chosen insulating material or combination of materials applied to the envelope (bricks, coatings etc.).
More specifically, the passive fire protection of the building envelope configurations take into account the category
of structural members, the type of the insulation materials, the varying thickness of insulation, the position of
insulation, and the type/thickness of the assumed coatings. In addition, it is important during a fire event any passive
protection system taken into account in the design of the envelope be adequately maintained.
The sustainability indicators of a steel-framed structure exposed to fire can be grouped under three elements of
sustainable development. The first indicator relates the safety and the resistance of the structure, the second relates
the impact to the society and finally the third relates the passive fire protection design to the environmental
protection including life-cycle aspects of used materials. The impact of the first indicator is mainly influenced by
two different levels of reliability, 1) life safety and no-collapse requirement and 2) fire resistance of steel-framed
structure and damage limitation. No-collapse requirement impact means that the structural performance is evaluated
to avoid local or global failure and collapse. On the other hand fire resistance impact means that the structural
resistance is taken into account damage limitation requirements. This is an evaluation in respect to the limitation of
use and the costs that would be disproportionately high in comparison with the costs of the structure itself.

2.2. Critical temperatures of steel elements exposed to fire

For the purposes of Eurocodes, fire resistance is the ability of a structure to fulfil its required function for a
specified load level, for a specified fire exposure and for a specified period of time. For a given (thermal due to fire)
load level, the temperature at which failure is expected to occur in a structural steel element characterized as the
critical temperature where an effective yield strength f y ,T is truncated to provide a yield plateau4. The relationship
300 M.Z. Bezas et al. / Procedia Environmental Sciences 38 (2017) 298 – 305

between the effective yield strength f y ,T to the yield strength of the structural steel f y and also of the slope of the
linear elastic range Ea ,T to the modulus of elasticity of the structural steel element for normal temperature design
Ea is expressed by the reduction factors k y ,T and k E ,T respectively at elevated temperatures according to Eurocode
3.1. In the range 20o C d Ta d 400o C of elevated temperatures, the value of the reduction factor of the effective yield
strength is constant k y ,T 1,0 and at the same time the effect of the reduction factor for the slope of the linear
elastic range is not significant 1,0 d kE ,T d 0,7 . Therefore, a first secure limit to evaluate the fire resistance of the
steel element is the time from the beginning of exposure to fire to a single compartment of the building, when the
temperature on the steel element reaches Ta 400o C . During this period of time the structural resistance of the
steel-framed structure is still safe taking into account an analysis of structure in accidental design situations. A
second limit under consideration is the time from the beginning of exposure to fire when the temperature on the steel
element reaches Ta 600o C . At this time the reduction factor of the effective yield strength is decreased
continuously to the value of k y ,T 0,47 and therefore, the effective yield strength f y ,T decreased to a 50% of the
initial yield strength of the structural steel element f y . Then the reduction factor for the slope of the linear elastic
range takes a much lower value, kE ,T 0,31 and the buckling resistance of the cross-section decreases. In order to
quantify the impact of the performance of the steel-framed elements in terms of temperature and time, two
temperature limits could be taken into account. The first limit is that of T o1 400o C , where under the time in
thermal exposure of this limit both structural safety and resistance with damage limitation are considered, and the
second one is that of T o2 600o C , where over the time in thermal exposure of this limit the structural failure and
collapse is possible, respectively.

3. Structural details of steel buildings envelope

3.1. Structural details catalogue

Apart from the knowledge and the theoretical results that have been derived by this research, there are also more
practical results, such as an integrated catalogue with numerous constructional details of steel-framed buildings with
double-shell brick cladding and information regarding their fire protection system, as well as the thermophysical,
hygrothermal and environmental properties. Therefore, the constructional details could be used to estimate the
optimal form and position of building materials in the case of steel-framed buildings with double-shell brick
cladding. It must be noted that it is a sub-catalog as part of a general catalogue that has been produced under the
framework of the research project2,3 "SYNERGY". The general catalogue includes all the structural details and
information of the most common forms of steel-framed building envelopes.
These details are very useful, especially during the design and the decision-making phases for a new steel-framed
building. In fact, these details include information about thermal and energy related criteria due to the near zero-
energy building requirements. Therefore, the constructional details could be used to estimate the optimal form and
the position of building materials in the case of steel-framed buildings with double-shell brick cladding and to
estimate which are the most efficient for use, especially from the point of view of fire performance of the structure.

3.2. Specification of fire-thermal behavior of building materials exposed to fire

In this paper a catalogue with structural details of steel buildings with residential use is proposed for the case of a
double-shell brickwork cladding. These details mainly based on known codes, standards and technical manuals,
such as those proposed by the Brick Development Association of the British Steel Corporation, to issue Brick
cladding to steel frame buildings4. Specifically, integrated structural details adapted to modern Greek conditions
have been designed, but also following requirements and regulations as applicable Eurocode 5,6 (see Fig. 1) and their
national annexes and energy standards (such as the Regulation of Energy Performance of Buildings). An attempt
was made to reduce thermal bridges so that those structural details been able to respond fully to a residential
building7. For many of them the steel-framed element is in contact with the buildings shell and placed to the side of
the interior, in some other cases the steel element is arranged partly inside the shell layers, and of course in a few
cases the steel element is placed in its entirety within the shell layers and covered by a wall layer from the interior.
The structural details cover also and other sustainable design criteria according rules of sustainable design8,9,10.
 M.Z. Bezas et al. / Procedia Environmental Sciences 38 (2017) 298 – 305 301

These criteria are the choice of the materials and their life cycle assessment, the thermal and water insulation and the
reliable of the structural design.

Internal side Internal side

Fig. 1. Cross-sections configurations of double-shell brickwork cladding with respect to the position of the steel-framed column.

4. Fire simulation

According to Eurocode 1 - Part 1-2, §3.3.2, the temperature - time curve determines the temperature distribution
due to fire as a function of time. By this analysis is checked the performance of steel-framed elements due to
standard fire curve defined in Eurocode 1 - Part 1-2 as well as due to the fire curve of an advanced FDS (Fire
Dynamic Simulator), using a software simulation11. This fire simulation software for a certain fire compartment is a
computational fluid mechanics program which forms a fluid flow model driven by fire. The computational model
solves numerically a form of Navier-Stokes equations for low flow speeds. The fire model is obtained by the
numerical solution of the partial differential equations giving, in all points of a compartment, the thermo-dynamical
and aero-dynamical variables. The thermal flow guidance is supplemented with data from smoke emissions and heat
transfer due to the fire.
PA100

PA101

PA102

PA103

PA104

PA105

PA106

PA107
PA16

PA17

PA18

PA19

PA20

PA21

PA22

PA23

PA24

PA25

PA26

PA27

PA28

PA29

PA30

PA31

PA32

PA33

PA34

PA35

PA36

PA37

PA38

PA39

PA40

PA41

PA42

PA43

PA44

PA45

PA46

PA77

PA78

PA79

PA80

PA81

PA82

PA83

PA84

PA85

PA86

PA87

PA88

PA89

PA90

PA91

PA92

PA93

PA94

PA95

PA96

PA97

PA98

PA99

PA15 PA47 PA76 PA108

PA14 PA48 PA75 PA109

PA13 PA49 PA74 PA110

PA12 PA50 PA73 PA111

PA11 PA51 PA72 PA112

PA10 PA52 PA71 PA113

PA9 PA53 PA70 PA114

PA8 PA54 PA69 PA115

PA7 PA55 PA68 PA116

PA6 PA56 PA67 PA117

PA5 PA57 PA66 PA118

PA4 PA58 PA65 PA119

PA3 PA59 PA64 PA120

PA2 PA60 PA63 PA121

PA1 PA61 PA62 PA122

Vertical cross, y=6.80

12.0

6.0 6.0

Wall B (external)
1'

3'
2'

4'

A W7 A'
W4 W5 W6

W3 W8

Wall 2
Wall C
Wall Α

6.0

W2 W9

Τοίχος 1
W 11 W 12

W1

Wall D W 10
3

4
2
1

Fig. 2. Typical fire compartment model in a steel-framed building.

302 M.Z. Bezas et al. / Procedia Environmental Sciences 38 (2017) 298 – 305

In order to implement a reliable fire simulation model is necessary to establish a common and representative fire
compartment12 (see Fig. 2) with dimensions of 12X5 meters of typical building model with residential use. This is a
representative case of a compartment in a residential building where the selected room includes one side common
with the external shell and thus corresponds to the resolution of an internal non-heated room.
The performance analysis of curves according to the two fire models used here is different, but both are
additively representative. The obtained results of the fire models combine the temperature distribution (vertical axis)
versus time (horizontal axis) with values in [οC] and [sec] respectively to the top and the bottom of the fire
compartment (see Fig. 3).

Surface Temperature
Surface Temperature (deg C)

Time (s)
Z=0.6m Z=2.8m

Fig. 3. Temperature-time fire distribution due to FDS simulation to the top and to the bottom of the fire compartment.

5. Finite element analysis

The fire curve of Eurocode EN1991-1-2 and advances fire dynamic simulation (FDS) curve are used here to
investigate the heat transfer on external shell and especially to investigate the effect of increasing the temperature of
the connected with the shell steel element. Therefore, a certain part of a detail including envelope layers in
connection with a steel element (in respect with the production of the listed complex details) is analyzed as a 3-D
Finite Element Model (see Fig. 4) using ANSYS computer program under a thermal solution scheme.

Fig. 4. 3-D FEM model of a typical double-shell brickwork cladding.

 M.Z. Bezas et al. / Procedia Environmental Sciences 38 (2017) 298 – 305 303

The input data in this multi-layer model include all the thermodynamic characteristics and properties of the
materials. The geometry of each layer (envelope walls, insulation materials etc.) is made under a solid model
simulation where the connection between separated layers is simulated by complex non-linear contact elements that
specified all the conditions of connections between neighboring layers. Moreover, the thermal solution uses here as
initial inputs the temperatures-time curve such as the curves described above. The analysis is parametric and easily
can be change thickness of any layer the kind of materials and the configuration of the shell, even the fire protection
layer of the steel element (see Fig. 5a, b).
a b

Fig. 5. (a) complex structural detail configuration; (b) critical temperature distribution due to fire on a complex structural detail using thermal
analysis.

The temperature distribution on the shell layers at each time step are the expected results of this analysis. The
evaluation of the results using the two limits of time for the fire resistance can be used to obtain the optimal site of
the steel element. Whilst can be evaluate all those construction materials that are efficient under fire condition taking
into account simultaneously their thermophysical, hygrothermal and environmental properties. By this analysis is
obtained the distribution of the temperature and the heat transfer through the components of the shell and the
influence of temperature to the steel elements (see Fig. 6). Results were delivered through tabulated data and are
summarized in the following tables and figures.

Fig. 6. Temperature distribution of a complex FEM model (left) and critical temperature distribution on the steel section (right).
304 M.Z. Bezas et al. / Procedia Environmental Sciences 38 (2017) 298 – 305

For example using a similar to the previously described FEM model for a building detail of the list, the thermal
solution shows that the steel reaches a temperature of 400°C in the first 120 sec after the fire exposure and of 600°C
to 1310 sec. The fire protection here is a rockwool layer and works effectively decreasing the temperature
distribution on the steel element in comparison with the input temperature distribution of the fire simulation in the
fire compartment (see Fig. 7).

Fig. 7. Temperature distribution on a steel element of a structural detail using FDS fire simulation versus EC fire.

By the same procedure the different temperature distribution can be found and thus, the optimal shape and
configuration of the shell including thermal and fire protection layers can be defined (see Fig. 8).

1000

900

800

700

600
single gypsum panel
[oC]

500 Fire protection coating

Rockwool 3cm
400
Rockwool 4cm
300 Rockwool 5cm

200

100

0
0 900 1800 2700 3600

[sec]

Fig. 8. Temperature distribution of different fire protection systems for a typical complex structural detail (results for the EC fire).

6. Conclusions

The design of steel-framed buildings with double-shell brick cladding is a practical, viable and efficient
construction technique. Taking into consideration a critical evaluation of the described catalogue of structural details
it is estimated that the case where the steel element is placed on the interior side of the shell includes several design
advantages and could designed to be optimal. From a structural point of view, the steel-framed structures with
double-shell brick cladding can be protected against fire in an effective way. This protection includes all the vertical
and horizontal steel elements of the shell as well as the moment resisting frame elements such as the concentric or
 M.Z. Bezas et al. / Procedia Environmental Sciences 38 (2017) 298 – 305 305

eccentric steel bracings. Finally, the results of this study can be used as input data for the estimation of the
maximum load capacity of a structural member under fire conditions.

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