EFFECT OF FIRE PARAMETERS ON STRUCTURAL BEHAVIOUR OF A RESTRAINED STEEL BEAM

Fires have become a common threat in terms of both public and structural safety. The increased concern for structural fire safety led to understanding the structural response of different members exposed to fire. This begins with fire modelling where a fire scenario is simulated as fire curves of time temperature variation and the response of structure for these fire curves is further analysed. The interpretation of fire scenarios as fire curves is formulated based on factors such as the opening factor, which is the measure of the openings in a compartment; the thermal inertia of the compartment surroundings; and the fire load density, the amount of combustible materials available per unit floor area of a compartment. The variation of any of these factors affects the fire curve and thus the response of a structure. This paper deals with a study of the effect of variation in opening Factor, fuel load density and thermal inertia on the structural response of a Beam. It mainly focuses on the variation in deflections and axial forces. It was observed that the thermal inertia has the least effect on the structural response of the beam, even though the percentage variation in its value is much higher (269.94%) the residual forces and deflections varied only by 0.4% and 2.13% respectively where the same are found to be higher for a comparatively lesser variation in the magnitudes of other factors.