A New Software That Can Be Used to Model Structures Exposed to Fires

Researchers developed a software that computes the sectional behaviour of concrete elements under ambient and elevated fire temperatures.

Tech ID: W-23-006-TH Fire Exposure

Background

Fire accidents are a significant risk to human life and civil infrastructure. As a countermeasure, the regulatory bodies of different countries have established standards for evaluating the performance of construction elements during fire exposure. Software currently available to model the behaviour of building structures subjected to fire have many drawbacks. For example, some software adopts the Finite Element (FE) method, which increases the computational effort and analysis and provides a black box solution. Along with this, some software uses the

500C Isotherm or empirical methods, which provides very approximate solutions. Evidently, there is room to improve software used to model structures exposed to fires.

Tech Overview

Researchers at Western University developed a software that computes the seconal behaviour of reinforced concrete elements under ambient and elevated fire temperatures. It calculates the axial behaviour, moment- curvature relationships, and shear capacity. It can be integrated with any commercially available structural analysis software, which will allow engineers to conduct performance-based design of structures exposed to fire. This design approach was recently introduced in North American Fire Design Codes. Currently, the software capabilities are extended to include prestressed elements, effect of earthquake damage, and two-way shear of flat plates.

Benefits

The software will be the first to provide structural engineers with a practical design tool to evaluate the fire performance of reinforced concrete buildings during fire exposure. The coding of this software was done using simplified yet accurate seconal analysis algorithm. This allows the software to be:

Practical for design engineers to interpret and judge on its results,
Fast and efficient,
Compiled as a web-based tool/application, and
Versatile design tool than can be integrated with most of the available commercial structural analysis soware (e.g. CSI SAP200 and Bentley STAAD.Pro).

Applications

To compute the seconal capacity (flexural and shear) and behaviour of reinforced concrete elements under ambient and elevated fire temperature. It is also extended to include prestressed elements, effect of earthquake damage, and two-way shear of flat plates.

Opportunity

This software is currently under development but could be used at this stage in industry with some restrictions. A development partner is sought after to speed up the development process.

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