IFireSS – International Fire Safety Symposium

Coimbra, Portugal, 20th-23rd April 2015

RELIABILITY-BASED EQUIVALENT FIRE DURATION FOR CONCRETE
ELEMENTS EXPOSED TO NATURAL FIRES

Ruben Van Coile Robby Caspeele Luc Taerwe

Ph.D. candidate Professor Professor
Ghent University Ghent University Ghent University
Belgium Belgium Belgium
Keywords: structural fire safety; natural fire, equivalent standard fire duration; concrete
elements

1. INTRODUCTION

The last decade have witnessed two opposing trends with respect to structural fire safety. On the
one hand, large disasters and fire accidents have increased the perception that structural fire
safety is important, while on the other hand, a trend towards more economic and aesthetic
design solutions has been promoting deviations from severe standard fire curves towards less
severe natural fires.

In order to fully assess the implications of these opposing trends and to develop rational design
guidelines, the structural fire safety of concrete elements exposed to both standard fires and
natural fires has to be assessed. Furthermore, if a reliability-based equivalency between natural
fires and standard fires can be determined, many existing test results and accepted design
solutions can readily be used in the new performance-based framework.

2. SAFETY LEVEL OF CONCRETE ELEMENTS EXPOSED TO NATURAL FIRES

The probabilistic distribution of the bending moment capacity MR,fi,t of concrete elements
exposed to natural fire curves is determined with a numerical calculation tool, based on [1].
Having determined the distribution of MR,fi,t, the reliability during fire exposure is determined from
FORM analysis. The evolution of the reliability level as a function of the fire duration is visualized
in Figure 1 for different fire load densities (parametric fire curve of EN 1991-1-2 [2], opening
factor of 0,1). Further, a comparison is made with results obtained for the ISO 834 fire curve.

As indicated in Figure 1, the reliability decreases faster for the natural fire exposure. This is due
to the increased convection coefficient according to EN 1991-1-2 and the associated accelerated
heating of the reinforcement. However, as the natural fire curve includes a cooling phase, the
reliability index stabilizes at a minimum value βmin.

Figure 1. Reliability index βfi,t for a concrete slab exposed to natural fires and the ISO standard fire curve

3. RELIABILITY-BASED EQUIVALENCY WITH STANDARD FIRE CURVES

For every natural fire curve a minimum value β min of the reliability index can be determined. As
the reliability level during exposure to the ISO 834 or ASTM E 119 standard fire curve decreases
continuously, every value βmin corresponds with an equivalent standard fire duration tISO,eq.
Commparing these tISO,eq with the equivalency formulas of the Eurocode indicates that the
current Eurocode equivalency rules are unconservative.

4. REFERENCES

[1] Van Coile, R., Annerel, E., Caspeele, R., Taerwe, L.: Full-Probabilistic analysis of concrete
beams during fire, Journal of Structural Fire Engineering, 2013, 165-174.
[2] CEN, Eurocode 1: Actions on structures – Part 1-2: General actions – Actions on structures
exposed to fire, European Standard, 2002.