light steel floor

SucceSSfuL fire teSt on a Light SteeL fLoor

Dr Stephen hicks, Manager of Structural Systems, Heavy Engineering Research Association (HERA) Prof. Mark Lawson, SCI Professor of Construction Systems, University of Surrey, UK
ight steel frames are increasingly used worldwide in residential and hotel buildings of 6 to 8-storeys, primarily because of the speed of installation and productivity benefits of off-site manufacture. This is particularly true in the UK where residential buildings of up to 11 storeys height have been constructed using this technology. However, the increase in building height leads to longer required periods of fire resistance. As part of the UK Light Steel and Modular Framing Group activities, the Steel Construction Institute (SCI) has recently undertaken a full-scale loaded fire test on a light steel floor at the Building Research Establishment (an equivalent organization to BRANZ). The reason for this research was to develop generic fire design guidance for the light steel framing industry, as well as demonstrate the performance according to the more severe EN 1365-2 fire test compared to the traditional UK test to BS 476-20 (in Europe, the EN series of harmonised Standards are the recommended means of conformity with the essential requirements of the Construction Products Directive for construction works and products that bear the CE Marking). The plan dimension of the test floor was 4.5 m x 3.5 m and supported an imposed load of 2.5 kPa plus its self-weight of 0.5 kPa. The floor consisted of 4.5 m span steel C-section joists spaced at 400 mm cross-centres, which were 200 mm deep with 63 mm wide flanges rolled from 1.6 mm thick steel to EN10326-S350GD+Z275 (equivalent to G350+Z275 steel supplied to AS 1397). For this steel grade, the load ratio was 0.3 owing to the fact that floor joists are generally not loaded to their full capacity when designed for control of deflections and occupant-induced vibrations occasioned by walking activities. Using this load ratio, the test results may be extended to other joist sizes, loads and spans. The light steel floor was detailed according to the UK Robust Detail for acoustic performance (www.robustdetails.com), to ensure that the information is widely applicable to international best practice (see Figure 1). With a suitable resilient floor covering, the cross-section in Figure 1 is expected to deliver an airborne sound insulation, DnT,w + Ctr 47 to 57 dB and impact sound insulation, Lntw = 44 to 58 dB (N.B. Ctr spectrum adaptation term is used to take account of low frequency sounds, which is negative and is typically within the range of -4 to -16 dB), This detail would therefore also satisfy the limits given in the proposed changes to the NZBC, Clause G6 (www.dbh.govt.nz).

the EN 1993-1-2, the equivalent reduction factor for the effective yield strength of the steel (see Figure 2). At 93 minutes the test was terminated at the request of the sponsors (the floor after testing, and still under load, is shown in Figure 3). The fire resistance period of 90 minutes achieved in this test clearly demonstrates that light steel framing can satisfy some of the most demanding fire resistance periods required for multi-storey buildings. Moreover, the gypsum board that needs to be provided to the ceiling and wall faces to ensure satisfactory acoustic performance, also provides an inherent fire resistance to this structural solution. The information from this test can be used immediately by the light steel manufacturers to support their multi-storey design project work and development strategies. The sponsors of the fire test were: Corus Strip, Ayrshire Metal, Fusion Building Systems, Metek Building Systems, Metsec, Kingspan Off-site and Lafarge Plasterboard.
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Figure 1: Cross-section through the light steel test floor

Initially, a mid-span deflection of 9 mm was measured when the 2.5 kPa imposed load was applied to the floor. During the first 80 minutes of the fire test, the increased deflection of the floor was less than 5 mm but, more importantly, the measured temperature in the steel joists remained at less than 100C: so the joists would be essentially undamaged and re-usable, even after a severe fire (see Figure 2). At 90 minutes, the joist temperature reached 280C, which corresponded to a furnace temperature of over 1000C. At this point, the deflection had only reached 30mm, which was well below the span/30 limit of 140 mm according EN 1396-2; moreover, the mean temperature of the upper surface was also less than 60C, which was well within the 140C limit for this fire test Standard. At the eventual failure at 92 minutes (due to the insulation and integrity criterion having been met), the deflection was 230 mm due to the rapidly increasing steel temperature, which had reached approximately 600C at this stage. This critical temperature correlates with the load ratio of 0.3 which represents, according to

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Figure 2: EN 1993-1-2 reduction factors for stress-strain relationship of steel at elevated temperatures

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Figure 3: View of the light steel floor under a load of 2.5 kPa at the end of the 90 minutes fire resistance test at BRE.