Review Article
Performance of steelconcrete
composite structures in fire
Y C Wang
University of Manchester, UK
Summary
This paper presents a review of recent studies of
the behaviour of steelconcrete composite
structures in fire, including an assessment of
research investigations and their implications on
fire-resistant design of composite structures. The
paper focuses on the three main parts of
composite structure: floor systems, columns and
joints. The section on composite floor systems
includes bending behaviour of conventional
composite floor/beam system with composite
slabs on top of a solid steel I-beam; tensile
membrane action in this system; slim-floor
construction; composite cellular beam;
composite truss and composite beam with
precast concrete slabs. The section on composite
columns includes studies of concrete-filled
Key words: fire resistance; fire-resistant design; fire safety engineering; composite structures; floor systems; composite
columns; joints; advanced structural behaviour
Prog. Struct. Engng Mater. 2005; 7:86102
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/pse.197
Background
The disaster of September 11th 2001, in New York has
aroused the interest of all those concerned with
building design and construction on the issue of
structural behaviour in fire. In particular, since
composite steelconcrete construction is often
associated with steel which has high thermal
conductivity (thus giving fast increase of temperature
under fire exposure) and reduces strength and
stiffness at elevated temperatures, the performance
and safety of composite steelconcrete structures in
fire will receive intensive attention. However, it
should be pointed out that prior to the September 11th
event, research studies on steel and composite
structural performance in fire had been intensive, and
advances in this field rapid, particularly in Europe. Of
the foremost importance is the Cardington large-scale
structural fire research programme that took place in
the mid-1990s in the UK, where a number of tests
were conducted in the purpose-built, full-scale, eight
Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
tubular (CFT) column; design of composite
columns and performance of CFT columns within
structures. The section on joints covers both steel
and composite joints, including experiments on
joints in fire; finite element simulation; the
component method; behaviour of different joint
components at elevated temperatures and
implications of joint behaviour on steel and
composite structural behaviour in fire. Within
each section, wherever appropriate, the effects of
whole structural behaviour are discussed.
Furthermore, potential future research studies
are identified to help understand the subject
and develop improved performance-based
practical fire resistant design calculation
methods.
storey steel-framed structure with composite floors to
investigate the performance of a complete building
structure in fire. There have been numerous articles
describing this research programme. Among these,
the important document[1] published by the Steel
Construction Institute of the UK gives a detailed
description of the background to this research
programme, details of the six large-scale structural
fire tests and the main observations and implications,
along with other fire tests or fire accidents around the
world in complete buildings that formed part of the
justifications for conducting the Cardington research
programme. It also contains the so-called level one
design guide based on using tensile membrane action
in lightly reinforced composite slabs (see the section
on floor systems for further details). The recent book
by the author[2] provides a more detailed technical
description of this research programme as well as
some preliminary analysis of the test results which
contributed to further extensive and detailed analyses
of the floor system behaviour, which have been
Prog. Struct. Engng Mater. 2005; 7:86102

conducted by others. These Cardington fire tests have
been followed by intensive analysis, development of
practical design guidance and more detailed research
studies that will be reviewed in this paper.
It is worth pointing out that understanding the
behaviour of composite structures in fire is an aspect
of fire-resistance of buildings that forms part of the
building fire safety package for providing safe
evacuation of occupants, preventing fire spread and
minimizing loss of life and monetary values under
conditions of fire. Therefore, the requirements on the
composite structural performance in fire are closely
related to how the other aspects of the building fire
safety package perform. However, the entire field of
fire safety engineering is wide, and this review paper
will concentrate only on stability of composite
structures in fire. Other closely related topics of fire
resistance include the behaviour of fires (particularly
the so-called post-flashover fires), heat transfer, fire-
resistant compartmentation and integrity. To gain a
thorough grounding in fire dynamics dealing with fire
behaviour, interested readers should consult the SFPE
handbook[3] and the excellent textbooks by Drysdale[4]
and Karlsson & Quintiere[5] on this topic. The recent
book by the author[2] provides a summary of fire
behaviour and heat transfer in the context of
structural fire resistance and also other topics
closely related to composite structural performance
in fire.
In an earlier issue of this journal, Plank[6] published
an excellent review paper on the same topic, outlining
research and developments to roughly the late 1990s,
just after the aforementioned Cardington fire tests.
The present paper may be seen to complement the
review of Plank by describing and assessing more
recent advances in this area after the Cardington fire
tests. This journal also contains a number of excellent
papers that are relevant to the topic under discussion,
including the paper by Bennetts & Thomas[7] on
overall fire safety design and the implications of fire
risk, by Galvanessian & Holicky[8] on specification of
loads for the fire limit state, and detailed reviews by
Bennetts & Thomas[9] and Kruppa[10] focusing on steel
structures.
This paper is divided into three main parts: dealing
with the three main components of composite
structure: floor systems, columns and joints. It has
long been recognized that the behaviour of a
structural member in isolation is different from that of
the member within a complete structure. However,
whole structural behaviour is not reviewed separately
in this paper. Instead, wherever appropriate, the effect
of whole building on the behaviour of the three
components will be described so that the discussions
of this paper are clearly focused. Each part will review
and evaluate the latest research in the area,
completing with a description of the current design
method and possible future research studies to
improve understanding.
Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
STEELCONCRETE STRUCTURES IN FIRE 87
Floor systems
Many recent advances in understanding composite
structural performance in fire come from further
detailed research studies after the groundbreaking
Cardington research programme in which six large
scale structural fire tests were conducted in the
eight-storey composite structure. One important
observation was that the lightly reinforced composite
slabs were critical in providing stability to the
severely fire-damaged test building after each fire test,
bridging over many fire-damaged beams that were
not fire protected. The particular load-carrying
mechanism was identified as tensile membrane action
(TMA), in which the applied vertical load on the floor
slab is resisted by tension in the light anti-crack
reinforcement mesh in the floor slab. In a floor slab
without in-plane restraint along the edges, the tensile
forces in the reinforcement mesh are resisted by a
compressive concrete ring around the slab edges, as
shown in Fig. 1. TMA in a slab occurs at very large
deflections and the load carrying capacity of the slab
in TMA can far exceed that of the slab under pure
bending, which is often quantified by following the
slab yield line analysis. Therefore, utilizing TMA has
the potential of eliminating fire protection to a large
number of steel beams in steel and composite
structures. It is therefore not surprising that this single
topic has attracted the attention of a large number of
research studies on composite structural behaviour in
fire, which will be reviewed in this paper.
The most common type of composite floor system is
shown in Fig. 2(a). It comprises a universal steel beam
section, connected to the steel decking (a thin layer of
steel sheeting) on the top flange via shear studs, and
in situ concrete (with a layer of light anti-crack
reinforcement mesh) on top of the steel decking. This
type of composite floor system was used in the
Cardington research structure and the subsequent
research studies of TMA refer to this type of
construction. Other types of composite floor system
include slim-floor construction shown in Fig. 2(b),
long-span composite floor with cellular beams in
Fig. 2(c), long-span composite floor with trusses in
Fig. 1 Membrane action in a floor slab without in-plane restraint
around the edges[35]
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88
Fig. 2 Different types of composite floor system: (a) slab on top of solid steel section; (b) slim-floor system; (c) composite cellular beam;
(d) composite truss; (e) composite beam with precast concrete slabs[11]
Fig. 2(d) and composite beams with precast hollow
core slabs[11] shown in Fig. 2(e). Compared with the
most common type of composite floor system in
Fig. 2(a), research studies of other types of composite
floor system are much less advanced, for example,
even how such systems behave in pure bending has
not been extensively studied. This review paper will
also provide a description of some relevant recent
research on these different types of composite floor
system.
BENDING IN COMPOSITE FLOOR SYSTEM
COMPRISING A COMPOSITE SLAB ON TOP OF A
SOLID STEEL BEAM
The bending behaviour of this type of composite floor
system is well understood. Provided temperatures in
the composite beam are known, the existing design
guides such as Eurocode 4 Part 1.2[12] and British
Standard BS 5950 Part 8[13] provide accurate methods
to calculate the plastic bending moment capacity of
this type of composite beam. Furthermore, Eurocode 4
Part 1.2[12] also contains a method to calculate
temperature distributions in the cross-section of the
composite beam. Since temperature distribution in the
composite beam in fire is usually nonuniform, the
plastic bending moment capacity method works by
Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
COMPOSITE CONSTRUCTION
dividing the composite beam into a number of slices
each having approximately the same temperature.
The plastic bending moment capacity of the
composite beam is obtained by summing
contributions from the individual slices. To use the
plastic bending moment capacity method to
composite beams with partial shear connection, it
would be necessary to have information on how the
shear connectors behave in fire. So far, only Zhao and
Kruppa[14] have reported a study of the behaviour of
shear connectors in fire, including temperatures
attained in shear connectors and degradation in their
shear strength at elevated temperatures. In the
absence of reliable information on shear connector
capacity in fire, it is preferable to use the limiting
temperature method in BS 5950 Part 8[13] to calculate
the plastic bending moment capacity of composite
beams with partial shear connection. BS 5950 Part 8
gives slightly higher limiting temperature for a beam
with partial shear connection than one with full shear
connection at the same load ratio. This reflects the
slower degradation of shear connector capacity in fire
than that of the steel beam because of the lower rate of
heating of the shear connectors. Huang et al.[15]
conducted a finite element simulation of the fire
behaviour of composite beams that have partial shear
connection at ambient temperature, and found that
Prog. Struct. Engng Mater. 2005; 7:86102

the behaviour of these beams were no different from
that of beams that have full shear connection at
ambient temperature.
The same plastic bending moment capacity method
can also be used to evaluate the plastic bending
moment capacity of composite slabs. To enable this
calculation, Eurocode 4 Part 1.2[12] includes a method
to calculate temperature distributions in composite
slabs, based entirely on the PhD research study by
Both[16]. It should be pointed out that this temperature
calculation method is only for slabs subjected to the
standard fire exposure. For fire resistance calculations
under conditions of so-called natural fires, alternative
methods would be required, for example using
numerical heat transfer analysis software.
TMA IN COMPOSITE FLOOR SYSTEM COMPRISING
A COMPOSITE SLAB ON TOP OF A SOLID STEEL
BEAM
The full-scale structural fire tests at Cardington were
followed by intensive analyses of the test results to
develop improved understanding and rational design
methods for evaluating fire performance of multi-
storey steel and composite structures. One of the most
important findings of the Cardington research was the
performance of the composite floor slabs in the fire
tests. They experienced very large deflections and
provided stability to the fire damaged test structure
by bridging over the fire damaged unprotected steel
beams which, at very high temperatures, had very
little load-carrying capacity to resist the applied load
in fire. Tensile membrane action, instead of bending,
was identified as the load-carrying mechanism in the
floor slabs that allowed the enhanced load-carrying
capacity of the floor slabs to develop. Wang[17,18] was
the first to use tensile membrane action to explain the
good performance of the Cardington test structure in
some of the fire tests.
Making use of tensile membrane action in the
composite floor system in fire had the potential of
eliminating fire protection to a substantial amount of
steel beams in a composite structure. Therefore, it is
not surprising that this aspect of composite structural
behaviour attracted most attention from structural fire
researchers. Their methods of investigation include
finite element analysis, simplified analytical solution
(a)
Fig. 3 Slab yield lines and positions of through-depth crack[35]: (a) cracks forming at intersection of yield lines; (b) cracks forming at slab
centre
Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
STEELCONCRETE STRUCTURES IN FIRE 89
and a small amount of model tests. Different
researchers have used different general finite element
packages such as ABAQUS[1921] or specialist finite
element packages for structural fire behaviour such as
VULCAN[2225], SAFIR[26] or ADAPTIC[27,28] to
simulate the Cardington fire tests. It appears that all
have succeeded in following the fire test results and in
correctly predicting tensile membrane action in the
floor slabs. Space limitation precludes a prolonged
discussion of the aforementioned different finite
element packages and comparison between different
investigations. Interested readers should refer to the
individual publications for detailed information about
the methodologies and accuracy of the different
methods. The publication by Wang[2] also offers a
general discussion of these packages.
To most users, finite element analysis packages are
black boxes, whilst analytical solutions have the
appeal of being able to offer some insight into the
problem. Furthermore, since analytical solutions are
often simpler to use, they attract the particular
attention of fire engineering practitioners. However,
the problem of tensile membrane action in floor slabs
under fire exposure is complex and many
assumptions and simplifications are necessary to
develop a practically viable method. Since the
opportunity to conduct extensive fire tests on floor
slabs at large deflections is extremely limited owing to
cost constraints, refinement of the simplified
analytical methods will, to a large extent, be based on
comparison against finite element simulation results.
The analytical solutions of Bailey have had the most
impact on application of the Cardington fire test
results in practical projects. Baileys main
development was for rectangular, lightly reinforced
concrete slabs with isotropic reinforcement and
simple supports (neither axial nor rotational
restraints) around the edges. It was based on the
method of Hayes[29] for slab tensile membrane action
analysis at ambient temperature. This method
assumes that the slab out-of-plane deformation
follows that of the slab yield line mechanism as
shown in Fig. 3. Bailey modified Hayess method by
changing the slab fracture line from at the
intersections of yield lines (Fig. 3a) to at the slab
centre (Fig. 3b). This was confirmed by the
observation of one slab test at ambient temperature
(b)
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90
carried out by Bailey et al.[30]. In addition, Bailey had
to introduce a slab failure condition so that the load-
carrying capacity of the slab can be calculated. He
assumed that slab failure would occur if the
maximum slab deflection reached a certain value.
This value is the sum of a thermal deflection that is
based on a regression analysis of the Cardington fire
tests and a mechanical deflection that would make the
average strain in the reinforcement equal to half of its
yield strain. The detailed theoretical background of
this method has been published[31]. The two widely
referenced papers published in The Structural Engineer
by Bailey & Moore[32,33] give a summary of this
method and some practical examples of its
application. This method has since been presented as
the level one method in the SCI publication[1]. This
SCI publication is an important document because it
also describes the background leading to the
Cardington research programme as well as their main
observations and practical implications on fire safety
design of multi-storey composite structures. More
recently, Bailey extended this method to slabs with
orthogonal arrangement of reinforcement[34] and to
include the contribution from the secondary steel
beams by adopting a variable yield line
mechanism[35].
An alternative analytical solution has been
proposed by Usmani & Cameron[36]. Their main
argument for developing a new model is that the slab
large deformation shape under fire condition would
be different from that following the movement of the
rigid plates between the yield lines shown in Fig. 3.
They suggested that the slab deformation shape in fire
should be according to thermal bowing of the slab.
They also made the assumption that the in-plane
movement of the floor slab is completely restrained
along the slab perimeter. Their argument is that the
floor slab would require very little restraint from the
edge beams to satisfy the demand of this assumption.
The ultimate limit of the slab is reached when the
maximum mechanical strain in the reinforcement
reaches fracture. The paper by Uamani & Cameron[36]
includes an example that compares this method and
the one developed by Bailey and they found that the
Bailey method would give a higher slab load-carrying
capacity than their own method (4.36 kN/m2 versus
3.2 kN/m2). However, because both methods adopt a
large number of necessary assumptions to simplify
the analysis, it is difficult to judge the accuracy and
reliability of each individual method.
Because of the importance and attractiveness of
developing simplified analytical calculation methods,
both the aforementioned methods should be further
checked against results of experiments and more
detailed finite element analyses. Recently, Huang
et al.[37,38] reported the results of a numerical study
that compares the simulation results from the
specialist software VULCAN against Baileys simple
design method for slabs with different amount of
Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
COMPOSITE CONSTRUCTION
reinforcement and aspect ratios. They found that the
simple design method may predict a greater slab
capacity than from VULCAN analysis. This is
particularly the case for highly reinforced square slabs
for which the difference from VULCAN solutions and
the simple design method is quite large. For slabs
with light reinforcement or slabs with higher aspect
ratios, both methods predict lower slab strength
enhancement due to tensile membrane action and the
disparity between them is less apparent. Foster
et al.[39] also reported the results of a series of tests at
ambient temperature on small-scale reinforced
concrete slabs with isotropic and orthogonal
distribution of smooth or deformed reinforcing bars.
They found that slabs with orthogonal reinforcement
and deformed bars had decreasing slab strength at
increasing slab deflections after reaching the slab peak
strength. However, because of the deflection limit
imposed by Baileys method, the simple calculation
method predicts slab load-carrying capacity that was
in nearly all cases conservative compared with the test
results. Clearly, the effect of bond between
reinforcement and concrete is an important issue
which can be resolved only by experimental
investigation of bond behaviour and experimental/
finite element study of its influence on slab behaviour
under conditions of fire.
OTHER TYPES OF COMPOSITE FLOOR SYSTEMS
Research studies of fire performance of alternative
floor systems are not as advanced as those on the
conventional floor system shown in Fig. 2(a).
Therefore, the following paragraphs describe some
relevant recent research studies and suggest a few
further research studies to address some of the
critical issues.
Slim-floor construction
In this paper, slim-floor construction is used to
describe the general construction method in which the
floor slabs are incorporated within the depth of the
steel beams, thereby resulting in a shallow
construction. The span capacity of this type of
construction is limited to 610 m, suitable for high-rise
residential construction[40]. Because the steel section is
insulated by the concrete floor, temperatures in the
unprotected steel section in fire, except those in the
lower flange of the beam, are low so that this type of
construction can achieve high fire resistance without
external fire protection. For example, studies by
Makelainen & Ma[41], Ma & Makelainen[42] and
Bailey[43] indicate that, provided the applied loads are
not exceedingly high (load ratio 50.5), this type of
construction can achieve 60 min standard fire
resistance without external fire protection. If the
beamcolumn joints can provide reliable semi-rigid
action, this type of construction can achieve 60 min
standard fire resistance under any realistic loading
Prog. Struct. Engng Mater. 2005; 7:86102

condition, and in some cases, the fire resistance may
be upgraded to 90 min. Bailey also concluded that if
semi-rigid joint behaviour is used, the fire resistance
of slim-floor construction with service holes may be
increased from 30 to 60 min standard fire resistance.
Furthermore, if fire resistance design is based on
natural fire exposure defined by Eurocode 1 Part
1.2[44], the simulation results of Makelainen & Ma[41]
suggest that the slim-floor construction can be used
without any additional fire protection measures until
the fire load density is at a very high level (1100 MJ
per m2 floor area), which is very rarely exceeded in
office and residential buildings for which this type of
construction is suitable. Interestingly, Sha[45] reported
a study on whether the standard fire resistance rating
of this type of construction may be increased from
60 min to the next tier of 90 min using so-called fire-
resistant steel[46]. It was found that this would not be
possible because only the web would benefit from
using fire-resistant steel, but whose contribution to
bending resistance of the system is relatively small
compared to the flanges.
The previous discussions are based on the slim-
floor construction providing bending resistance under
conditions of fire. However, this type of construction
is unlikely to be able to benefit from extensive
development of TMA in floor slabs for two reasons.
First, slim-floor construction has high inherent fire
resistance in bending as described above, thereby
making it rarely necessary to require additional
contribution from developing TMA. Second, in this
type of construction, the slim-floor beams are all edge
beams to the floor slab and they are all required to
provide vertical support to the perimeter of the floor
slab as a condition of developing TMA. The only
occasion where TMA may be utilized would be in two
adjacent floor slabs for them to bridge over the fire-
damaged common slim-floor beam. In this case,
the aspect ratio of one slim-floor slab is about 1
making the aspect ratio of these two adjacent slim-
floor slabs about 2. At this slab aspect ratio, the
development of TMA is unlikely to be great to be able
to provide much enhancement to bending resistance
of this type of construction.
Composite cellular beams
The ability of large spans and flexibility of
accommodating building services within the
structural zone have made composite cellular beams a
popular choice in modern buildings. However, there
are very few studies of the fire behaviour of this type
of construction. Liu & Liew[47] recently reported a
preliminary numerical investigation of simply
supported bare steel cellular beams. Their results
indicate that at the same load ratio (defined as the
ratio of the load applied to the beam in fire to the
load-carrying capacity of the beam at ambient
temperature), the limiting temperatures of cellular
beams are about 408C lower than those of
Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
STEELCONCRETE STRUCTURES IN FIRE 91
corresponding solid beams, but are rather similar
among different cellular beams with different spans,
spacing or locations of holes. Whilst this type of
results may be used to produce simplified design
guides for this type of construction, it is worth
pointing out their observation of web-post buckling
leading to unstable structural behaviour. Since the
failure mode of composite cellular beams will
frequently involve web-post buckling[48], it is
important that the local behaviour of web-posts in fire
be studied in detail. This is likely to be a complex
subject as study of the structural performance of this
type of construction cannot be separated from thermal
behaviour of the web-posts, which at present is still
extremely difficult to predict, especially if it involves
intumescent coating fire protection which is most
likely to be present in this type of construction.
Therefore, at present, in the absence of more detailed
and extensive studies, it is recommended to follow
advice of the manufacturers of this type of
construction.
If the floor slabs are the same as those discussed
previously under the section on TMA, this type of
construction would be able to enjoy the benefits of
enhanced slab load-carrying capacity as a result of
developing TMA.
Previous studies on this type of construction in fire
have assumed that there is no axial restraint to the
cellular beams. In realistic structures, restraints (either
axial or rotational) will be unavoidable. Yin &
Wang[49] recently conducted a preliminary numerical
study of axially restrained steel beams with openings
in the web and noticed that the fire behaviour of this
type of construction can be drastically different from
that of solid steel beams. Fig. 4 illustrates the
difference in axial loadtemperature behaviour of a
solid beam and a beam with opening in the web with
axial restraint. For both beams, the axial force changes
from compression at low tempeatures, as a result of
restrained thermal expansion, to tension at high
tempeatures when the axial restraint prevents pulling
in by the beam. For the solid beam, the transition from
compression to tension (zero axial force) occurs at the
limiting temperature of the beam under bending, i.e.
when the applied bending moment in the beam has
reached the bending moment capacity of the beam at
elevated temperature. If the solid steel beam is
designed to remain below its limiting temperature
under bending in fire, tension forces will not develop.
However, for the beam with web opening, this
transition happens at very low temperature and
tension forces in the beam could develop at
temperatures much lower than the beams limiting
temperature under bending. This comes about
because restraint to axial expansion of the beam
causes the steel section at the opening to experience
local buckling/yielding, relieving the bending
moment capacity of the beam and forcing the beam to
resist the applied load in catenary action. Tension
Prog. Struct. Engng Mater. 2005; 7:86102
92
Axial load in beam
Com. Transition temperature << limiting
temperature of beam with web
opening in bending
Ten.
Fig. 4 Illustration of different behaviour between solid steel beam and steel beam with web opening
forces in the beam have two opposite effects on
structural safety. On the one hand, should the beam-
to-column joint have sufficient load-carrying capacity
to resist the tension forces, the beam would survive
very high temperatures. However, this does mean that
the joints and the adjacent structures should be
designed and constructed to resist these tension
forces. On the other hand, if the tension forces in the
beam develop, but cannot be resisted by the joints and
the adjacent structure, fracture and structural collapse
may occur. When a cellular beam acts in composite
action with the floor slab, it is expected that the
problem illustrated above would be alleviated
somewhat because the floor slabs should be able to
provide significantly enhanced compressive
resistance to delay the transition from compression to
tension in the composite beam with web opening,
thus reducing the likelihood of joint fracture before
the beam reaching its design limiting temperature
under bending. Nevertheless, further studies are
necessary to confirm this.
Composite truss system
Collapse of the two World Trade Center (WTC) towers
on September 11th 2001, in which lightweight
composite floor truss systems were used, led to some
recent interest in the behaviour of this type of
construction under conditions of fire. The National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of USA
are carrying out intensive research studies to
determine detailed behaviour of the involved
buildings. One aspect of their investigation is to study
the fire performance of the lightweight composite
floor truss system used in the WTC twin towers.
Interested readers should search their specific WTC
web site (http://wtc.nist.gov) for their latest findings.
At present, they carried out four tests (two full-scale
at 35 foot (10.7 m) and two half-scale at 17 foot (5.1 m)
span, each with and without axial restraint to thermal
expansion). They found that the restrained specimens
would have lower fire resistance rating than the
unrestrained specimens. However, it should be
pointed out that such ratings were according to the
Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
COMPOSITE CONSTRUCTION
Beam temperature
Transition temperature =
limiting temperature of
solid beam in bending
standard fire resistance testing procedure, which may
not represent how structural members would behave
in reality, nor do the standard fire resistance criteria
represent realistic structural performance
requirements.
Recently, Choi[50] reported a comprehensive
numerical investigation of the in-fire performance of
Warren-type lightweight composite trusses with and
without axial restraint, using the specialist finite
element software VULCAN. For the unrestrained
trusses, there are two failure modes: web member
failure or chord member failure. Web member failure
is brittle and should be avoided. Under realistic
nonuniform temperature distribution in the truss
members, some web members may be subjected to
much increased compression forces compared to
those obtained at ambient temperature, thus it may
not be safe to calculate the truss limiting temperatures
based on load ratios obtained from force analysis
conducted at ambient temperature. At the realistic
composite truss span/depth ratio of about 20, the
deflection limit of span/20 always became the
governing criteria of composite truss fire resistant
design. For axially restrained composite trusses,
catenary action may develop at very large truss
deflections. This could enable the truss to resist very
high temperatures, but the requirement for the
adjacent structure to resist the catenary force in the
composite truss should be taken into consideration. If
the truss deflection in fire is limited to span/20,
catenary action will not develop. As a summary, the
current deflection limit of span/20 plays a critical
role, yet apart from being embedded in the current
standard fire resistance test procedure, there is no
sound scientific basis for this limit. A thorough study
to change or remove this requirement would appear
to be necessary.
Composite beams with precast hollow core slabs
This type of construction has many advantages[11],
including the elimination of steel decking, long span
without propping and speedy construction, and their
use should become more widespread. However, there
Prog. Struct. Engng Mater. 2005; 7:86102

does not appear to be any reported study of fire
performance of this type of construction. Cooke[51]
reported the results of a few standard fire resistance
tests on precast concrete slabs. Since this study did not
deal with the crucial junction region between precast
slabs, it has limited usefulness in understanding the
behaviour of this type of composite floor system in
fire. Without thorough understanding of their
behaviour in fire, this type of construction is unlikely
to benefit from recent advances in composite
structural performance in fire, particularly it will be
difficult to take advantage of tensile membrane action
to eliminate fire protection to the steel beams. This
comes about because TMA relies on two-way
spanning of the floor slabs and precast concrete
slabs are perceived to be able to span in only one
direction.
Composite columns
Although there are a number of types of composite
column construction, including the traditional
construction of steel H-columns totally encased in
concrete (Fig. 5a), the so-called partially encased
column where only the space between the flanges of
the H-section is filled with concrete (Fig. 5b) and
concrete-filled tubular (CFT) columns (Fig. 5c), CFT
columns are more frequently used and various recent
research studies on composite columns seem to have
concentrated on this type of composite columns. This
section will provide a brief review of research studies
of CFT columns in fire. Eurocode 4 Part 1.2[12]
provides a general design method for composite
columns in fire and specific appendices for partially
encased composite columns and CFT columns.
Fig. 5 Types of composite column cross-section: (a) encased
section; (b) partially encased section; (c) concrete-filled tube
Table 1 Values of f1 for plain, bar-reinforced and fibre-reinforced concrete-filled columns
Type of aggregate Plain concrete
.........................................................................................................................
CHS Siliceous 0.07
Carbonate 0.08
SHS Siliceous 0.06
Carbonate 0.07
.........................................................................................................................
Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
STEELCONCRETE STRUCTURES IN FIRE 93
PERFORMANCE OF INDIVIDUAL CFT COLUMNS
The current main sources of information on fire
performance of individual CFT columns are from
Kodur & Lie and co-workers at the National Research
Council of Canada (NRCC), the research group in
Fuzhou university in China under the direction of
Han and CIDECT (Comite International pour le
Developpment et lEtude de la Construction
Tubulaire).
The NRCC research programme includes standard
fire resistance tests on rectangular, square and circular
tubes filled with plain, bar-reinforced and steel fiber-
reinforced concrete under axial load, in some cases
combined with eccentricity[5258]. All the columns
were 3810 mm in height with rigid supports at ends
and unprotected. The NRCC results indicate that the
design strength of CFT columns with plain concrete
filling would have to be substantially reduced
compared with the test results in order to obtain
reproducible and predictable fire resistance. With bar
reinforcement, although the column fire resistances
were high and reliable, inclusion of bar reinforcement
makes this option expensive and limits the minimum
size of the column. Steel fibre reinforcement in
concrete is seen to eliminate many of the
shortcomings of the previous two options. Kodur &
Lie[53] also undertook a detailed study to establish the
thermal and mechanical properties of steel fibre-
reinforced concrete at elevated temperatures. They
also developed a numerical procedure to calculate the
fire resistance of CFT columns. The results of their
parametric study using their numerical procedure,
combined with test observations, led them to develop
the following simple equation to calculate the fire
resistance of a CFT column under the standard fire
condition[52,55,56].
r
fc 20 D
FR f1 D2 (1)
Le
1000 C
where: FR standard fire resistance rating in min;
fc cylinder strength of concrete in N/mm2;
Le column effective length in mm; D outside
diameter of circular/outside dimension of square
steel tube in mm; C applied load in kN; f1 a
constant.
Table 1 lists the values of constant f1 in eq. (1) for
different design situations.
Bar reinforced concrete at Fibre-reinforced
percentage of steel concrete
reinforcement
...............................................
5 3% 5 3%
0.075 0.08 0.075
0.085 0.09 0.085
0.065 0.07 0.065
0.075 0.08 0.075
Prog. Struct. Engng Mater. 2005; 7:86102
94
250
NRC square columns
CIDECT square columns
NRC circular columns
200 CIDECT circular columns
Prediction, min
150
100
50
0 0
0 50 100 150
Fire resistance from test, min
Fig. 6 Comparison between predictions of eq. (1) and fire test
results[52]
For bar-reinforced concrete, the values in Table 1 are
for concrete cover to reinforcing bars less than 25 mm.
If the concrete cover is more than 25 mm, the values of
f1 in Table 1 may be increased by 0.005.
Fig. 6 compares predictions using equation 1 and
test results from various sources. It gives an indication
of the accuracy that may be achieved by using eq. (1).
Whilst eq. (1) does not provide very accurate results,
its predictions are mostly on the safe side. However,
its principal use is to give a very quick estimate of the
fire resistance of a CFT column.
CFT columns are becoming widely used in building
construction in China[59] in multi-storey and high-rise
buildings. Han and his co-workers carried out a large
number of standard fire tests on unprotected circular
and square plain concrete filled columns with and
without eccentricity. They developed a mechanistic
model[5961] to calculate the strength of CFT columns
in fire and then developed a regression equation from
the results of their extensive numerical simulations.
Unlike eq. (1) from NRCC, their design equations are
rather complex and will not be repeated here. Fig. 7
shows a typical comparison between results of their
design equation predictions and test results from
various sources. It seems that, whilst correlation is
rather good between design calculation results and
their own test results, correlation with other test
results is not as good. Nevertheless, their prediction
results are on the safe side. Comparing results in Figs
6 and 7, it appears that both methods offer similar
accuracy of prediction.
Han & Huo[62] also studied the behaviour of CFT
columns at ambient temperature, but after exposure
to the standard fire condition, their intention being to
provide data to help assess the residual strength of
fire damaged CFT columns. They seem to have been
the only ones to have paid attention to this aspect of
Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
COMPOSITE CONSTRUCTION
300
Lie & Chabot (1992)
250 Han et al (2002)
200
Prediction (min)
150
100
50
0
60 120 180 240 300
200 250 Experimental fire resistance (min)
Fig. 7 Comparison between predictions of Han et al. and fire test
results[59]
CFT column behaviour in fire. They followed a similar
procedure to that of their investigation of the
performance of CFT columns in fire, and derived a set
of empirical design calculation equations. The
problem with practical application of this method is
that when assessing a fire damaged structure, one has
to deal with the real fire exposure that damaged the
structure instead of following the standard fire
condition. Unless proper equivalence between the real
fire that damaged the structure and the standard fire
condition is established, it would be difficult to relate
their design equations to the particular fire under
consideration.
DESIGN OF CFT COLUMNS
Eurocode 4 Part 1.2[12] gives a general simplified
design method for composite columns and an
alternative method in a separate appendix for
concrete-filled columns. The general method is for
axially loaded columns and is based on using column
buckling curves. When using the general method,
Eurocode 4 Part 1.2 introduces a set of modification
factors for calculating contributions to flexural
rigidity of the composite cross-section from different
constituent parts. These modification factors have
nominally been used to account for the effect of
differential thermal strains of different materials at
different temperatures and stresses. They are only for
the standard fire situation.
When using the alternative design method,
a step-by-step approach should be taken, in which the
mechanical strain of the column increased, until the
design compressive resistance to axial loading of the
column is reached. At each step, the plastic resistance
and Euler buckling load of the composite column are
evaluated. The plastic resistance of the column is
Prog. Struct. Engng Mater. 2005; 7:86102

Load
Design
resistance
Fig. 8 Determination of CFT column design resistance according to Eurocode 4 Part 1.2[12]
calculated differently from that in the general
calculation method. It is calculated as the sum of the
product of the area of each component of the
composite cross-section and its stress. Here the stress
is taken from the stressstrain relationship of the
material at the column strain of the current step.
Therefore, as the strain of the column increases, the
plastic resistance of the composite column also
increases. This is illustrated as curve 1 in Fig. 8. In the
meantime, the Euler buckling load of the composite
column is calculated using the tangent modulus of the
stressstrain relationship of the material at the
material temperature and column strain of the current
step. As the tangent modulus of the material
decreases at increasing strain, the Euler buckling load
of the composite column also decreases with
increasing strain. This is shown as curve 2 in Fig. 8.
When these two curves meet, the plastic resistance of
the column becomes equal to the Euler load of the
column and this value is the design compression
strength of the composite column.
The alternative design method outlined above can
be extremely difficult to perform by hand. Not only
does it involve dealing with nonuniform temperature
distribution in the composite cross-section in a
detailed manner, but it also requires using detailed
stressstrain relationships of different materials at
different elevated temperatures.
Over many years, CIDECT commissioned a number
of research studies of CFT columns in fire. In the latest
CIDECT sponsored research on CFT columns in
fire[63], a number of fire tests were conducted and
analysed in detail by finite element simulation
software. The validated software was then used to
conduct an extensive parametric study to assess the
design methods in Eurocode 4 Part 1.2 on unprotected
Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
STEELCONCRETE STRUCTURES IN FIRE 95
Curve 1: plastic resistance
Curve 2: Euler buckling load
Strain
CFT columns. The results of this research indicate that
neither of the methods in Eurocode 4 Part 1.2 is
sufficient. With regard to the general simplified
method, no one column buckling curve is sufficient to
represent the large variation in simulation results of
column strength. When using the method in the
appendix as depicted in Fig. 8, the CIDECT research
results found that the design method may not be safe
when the column slenderness is high (relative
slenderness 40.5). The CIDECT research further went
on to develop an alternative design method to account
for the large variation in simulation results at the
same column slenderness, the effects of differential
thermal strains and bending moments. However, this
method is extremely complicated and it is also only
limited to the standard fire exposure condition.
Therefore, despite many research studies on this
topic and the development of a number of design
calculation methods, it appears that the search for a
generally applicable and relatively simple method
that is based on fundamental engineering principles
of structural behaviour, instead of just curve fitting, is
still necessary.
PERFORMANCE OF CFT COLUMNS WITHIN
COMPLETE STRUCTURE
Very few research studies have been reported on
restrained composite columns in fire, i.e. composite
columns within a structural assembly or complete
structure. Eurocode 4 Part 1.2[12] recommends that, in
a non-sway frame, if a composite column forms part
of a fire resistant construction, its effective length may
be reduced to reflect the situation that the fire exposed
column has low stiffness relative to the adjacent cool
columns that are separated from the fire exposed
Prog. Struct. Engng Mater. 2005; 7:86102
96
column by fire-resistant compartment floors. The
results of a numerical study by Wang[64] have
confirmed this design recommendation. However, for
CFT columns, the steel tube may experience local
squashing during a fire exposure. A numerical study
by Bailey[65] found that if local squashing occurs at the
top of a CFT column, this end of the column should be
assumed to be simply supported, regardless of the
contribution of rotational restraint from the adjacent
cool column above the fire-exposed column. Some
experimental evidence of rotationally restrained CFT
column behaviour[66] suggests that this local
squashing could occur at the column head as well
within the column length. Wherever local squashing
occurs, this position should be considered as a pin
when evaluating the column effective length. The
unanswered question is where local squashing would
occur. An analysis[67] of the fire test results[66] indicate
that the position of local squashing is dependent on
the level of axial load in the column and the thickness
of the steel tube. The bond between the steel tube and
concrete core was also identified as a possible
variable. However, because of the limited number of
fire tests, it was not possible to develop a set of clear
guidelines to determine the position of local
squashing in the steel tube of a CFT column in fire.
Since the effective length of a column is an important
parameter in calculating its strength, further research
study is required.
Joints
Although joints in steel and composite structures are
critical members of the structures, it is only now that
they are receiving the attention they deserve to
achieve better understanding of their performance in
fire. The reason for not requiring assessment of joint
behaviour in fire in design is based on the argument
that in the joint area, the fire-exposed area is low
compared with the mass, thereby slowing down
temperature rises in the joint area in fire compared
with the connected beams and columns. However,
recent observations from real fires[1] show that, on
some occasions, the accumulative effects of a number
of factors (see Fig. 9, including hogging bending
moment, tension field action in shear and high
cooling strain or pulling in effect at large deflections
of the connected beam) could make the tension
components of the joints (e.g. bolts/end plates)
Vertical
Shear
Catenary
Tension
Hogging
Moment
Fig. 9 Illustration of concentration of forces in the joint region
Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
COMPOSITE CONSTRUCTION
fracture. Perhaps the greatest danger of joint fracture
in fire is the potential of progressive collapse of the
composite structure, partial evidence of which came
from collapse of the two World Trade Center
towers[68], although it must be pointed out that at this
stage, there is still no definitive conclusion on the
most likely collapse mechanism of the two towers
after the attack on September 11th, 2001. However,
what is certain is that joint behaviour in fire deserves
comprehensive study to reflect the critical nature of
joints in structures. Since research studies on joint
behaviour in fire have only recently been started, this
review paper cannot provide a description of any
accepted design method, instead it will provide a
review of some of the most recent relevant studies in
this area. Because of the limited number of research
studies reported on composite joints and the strong
link between steel and composite joints, both will be
covered.
Da Silva et al.[69] have provided an extremely
comprehensive collation of research studies of joint
behaviour under fire loading, including a description
of the latest (seventh) structural fire test on the
Cardington composite structure. This section will
describe and assess research studies of a few key
aspects of joint behaviour under fire loading.
EXPERIMENTS OF JOINT BEHAVIOUR IN FIRE
Joint behaviour in fire is complex because various
forces in the joint region (bending moment, shear and
axial force) interact in an extremely complex
nonuniform temperature field and geometry.
Although observation of behaviour of joints within
complete buildings have been made[1], detailed
specific experimental research studies of joint
behaviour in fire are rare. Up to now, research studies
on joint behaviour in fire adopted the route followed
by investigators who studied joint behaviour at
ambient temperature, i.e. by attempting to quantify
the degradation of joint bending momentrotation
behaviour at elevated temperatures. Among these, the
tests of Lawson[70] on steel and composite joints,
Leston-Jones[71] on steel joints and Al-Jabri[72] on steel
and composite joints are frequently referred by other
researchers. The studies of Leston-Jones and Al-Jabri
were conducted as collaboration beteen the University
of Sheffield and the Building Research Establishment
(BRE) using the BRE portable furnace in a cruciform
arrangement shown in Fig. 10. Recently, Al-Jabri
et al.[73] published a paper giving details of moment
rotationtemperature curves and temperature
distributions recorded in their joint fire tests. These
results give valuable information for future joint
thermal and structural modelling.
FINITE ELEMENT SIMULATION
Whilst fire tests on joints provide valuable first-hand
information on joint behaviour in fire and much
needed experimental data, finite element simulation
Prog. Struct. Engng Mater. 2005; 7:86102

Column head
restrained in
position Gas fired barrel
furnace wall
Gravity load
1524
Laboratory
strong floor
Fig. 10 Cruciform arrangement for connection testing in fire[73]
of joint behaviour has the potential of gaining deep
insight into the behaviour of different joint
components and providing detailed understanding of
joint behaviour for the development of practical
design methods. To date, Liu appears to be the only
one to have extensively used finite element simulation
to study steel[74] and steel and composite[75,90] joint
behaviour in fire. Liu used a specialist finite element
program FEAST to carry out the simulations and
comparison of his simulation results (joint
temperaturerotation curves at elevated
temperatures) against the fire test results of Lawson[70]
on steel joints, and Al-Jabri[72] on steel and composite
joints, showed very good correlation.
Liu adapted the measured temperatures at a few
different locations of the test joints in his simulations
and commented on the importance of having detailed
knowledge about temperature distributions in joints.
Franssen[77] reported the results of a detailed three-
dimensional finite element analysis of temperature
fields in steel joints using the computer software
SAFIR. He found that, although temperatures in the
joint area were lower than those of the connected
members, his results did not support the simple joint
temperature calculation method in the current version
of Eurocode 3 Part 1.2[78] in which the joint component
temperatures are calculated using the local ratios of
surface area to volume of the components. The finite
element analysis results are much higher than those
calculated using Eurocode 3 Part 1.2. The reason is
that the dimensions of the joint components are an
order of magnitude smaller than the dimensions of
the connected members and the influence of the
connected members can be felt in the joint
components. In this regard, Wald et al.[79] reported the
seventh fire test on the Cardington composite
structure and provided detailed information of
temperature distributions in the joints in the fire test
compartment using both thermocouples and high-
temperature video cameras. The high-temperature
video cameras provided particularly valuable
information to appreciate the detailed temperature
Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
STEELCONCRETE STRUCTURES IN FIRE 97
distributions in the joint areas which would otherwise
not be possible with a limited number of
thermocouples. The experimental results by Wald
et al. also supported Franssens conclusions that the
current Eurocode 3 Part 1.2 method provides lower
temperatures than the test results in the joint area
during the heating period.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMPONENT
BASED METHOD
Whilst the type of finite element analysis of Liu for
joint behaviour will no doubt be followed by others in
research, they are not practical tools due to their
complexity. A simple method would be to curve-fit
experimental results. This has been done by Al-Jabri
et al.[73] who fitted RambergOsgood expressions of
joint momentrotation curves, at elevated
temperatures. However, this technique will require
the availability of a large number of joint moment
rotation curves and even then it would be suitable
only to joints that would behave in a similar way to
those that have been used to generate the curve-fitting
expressions. Since an identical joint would behave
differently under different fire exposure conditions,
this would be extremely difficult to be accommodated
using the curve-fitting technique. Furthermore, it has
long been recognized that any joint quantification in
fire should include the effects of axial and shear loads
in the connected beams, making curve fitting
impossible. The most likely method to be adopted in
practical design calculations is the so-called
component method, which consists of modelling a
joint as an assembly of extensional springs and rigid
links where the springs (components) with predefined
forcedeformation relationships represent specific
parts of a joint and the structural contributions of the
different springs are summed to give the total
structural response of the joint. An example is shown
in Fig. 11 which represents the physical joint model
(Fig. 11a) by a component based mechanical model
(Fig. 11b). Each spring (or component) of the joint is
under axial load (tension/compression), but the
assembly of the springs can account for any
combination of bending moment, axial force and
shear force. The component-based method has the
potential to characterize the comprehensive structural
behaviour of joints under different combinations of
loads, yet without the complexity of finite element
analysis. It has been well accepted to quantify
bending momentrotation characteristics of semi-
rigid joints at ambient temperature in Eurocode 3
Part 1.8[80].
The original component-based method in Eurocode
3 Part 1.8 may be modified to account for elevated
temperature effects, provided the mechanical
behaviour of different components of the joints at
elevated temperatures can be quantified (see next
section). Examples of this type of analysis can be
Prog. Struct. Engng Mater. 2005; 7:86102
98 COMPOSITE CONSTRUCTION

Tension/shear
components
Beam

Weld Compression components

End plate

Fig. 11 An example of the component-based method[82]: (a) physical model of joint; (b) component-based model

Bolts in tension

Column flange and end

plate in bending
Column web
in tension

Column web Beam web in tension

in shear and compression

Column web in
compression

Beam flange in
compression

Fig. 12 Main components of a steel joint[85]

found in Al-Jabri[81] and da Silva et al.[82]. Of particular
interest is the work by da Silva et al. which derives the
elevated temperature joint momentrotation
characteristics by modifying that of the joint at
ambient temperature by using ratios of component
strength/stiffness at elevated temperatures to those at
ambient temperature, obtained by considering the
sequence of yield of different joint components at
elevated temperatures. This has the simplicity of
making use of information of joint momentrotation
behaviour at ambient temperature, which may be
obtained by a number of means, e.g. test, curve-fitting
or the component-based method. There is no doubt
that the component-based method will be exploited
by others in the future to develop a practical method
to analyse steel and composite joint behaviour under
conditions of fire.
BEHAVIOUR OF JOINT COMPONENTS IN FIRE
In order to use the component-based method, it is
necessary to characterise the forcedisplacement
relationships of the individual components of the
joint. For example, Fig. 12 shows that, when applying
the component-based method to an extended steel
I-beam to H-column joint under hogging bending
moment in the beam, the joint components may be
considered to belong to one of the three zones: tension
zone, shear zone and compression zone. The
components in the tension zone include bolts in
tension, column web in tension, column flange and
end plate in bending, and beam web in tension; those
in the compression zone include beam flange/web in
compression, column web in compression; those in
the shear zone include column web panel in shear and
bolts in shear, if any.
The University of Sheffield Structural Fire
Engineering Research Group have recently conducted
a number of experimental and numerical research
studies to obtain information on behaviour of
components of end plated steel joints in fire (http://
www.shef.ac.uk/fire-research/publications.html). In
particular, Spyrou et al.[83] propose the following
expression to calculate the ultimate strength of the
column web in compression:
r    
p tfb 1:6c 2b
Pu t2wc Ewc swc 0:65 (2)
twc dwc 2b c
where twc is the column web thickness, tfb the beam
flange thickness in contact with the column, dwc the
column web depth (excluding the root radius), Ewc
the column web Youngs modulus at elevated
temperature, swc the column web yield strength at
elevated temperature, c the width of the applied load
and b the development width of the bearing zone in
the web. An approximate equation was also proposed
to calculate the deformation of the column web in
compression.

Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Prog. Struct. Engng Mater. 2005; 7:86102

Block et al.[84] conducted a numerical simulation
study using ANSYS to investigate the influence of
axial compression in the column on the column web
resistance in compression. They proposed that the
column web compression resistance in eq. (2) should
be modified by the coefficient kN in the following
equation to account for the longitudinal stress in the
column web sN.
s
 
sN 1:55
kN 1
(3)
swc
They further noticed that the column web
transverse deformation was reduced in the presence
of a longitudinal stress and proposed curve-fitting
equations to calculate the column transverse
deformations.
Spyrou et al.[85] conducted experimental and
analytical studies of the tension zone behaviour of
end-plated steel beam to column joints. They found
that the ambient temperature calculation method in
Eurocode 3 Part 1.8[80] is suitable, but the steel
strength and stiffness should use those at elevated
temperatures. For bolts in tension, they found that it is
suitable to use the bolt elevated temperature
properties obtained by Kirby[86]. Their experimental
observations show that thread stripping of bolts
occurred at elevated temperatures in specimens tested
at temperatures of 530 and 7408C. Their later
experiments used HSFG bolts to avoid thread
stripping, but they commented that this would not be
possible in practice and recommended that the
reduced capacity of the bolt and nut system due to
thread stripping be taken into account.
So far the studies of the Sheffield research group
have concentrated on steel joint components on the
column side. Further research studies are necessary to
characterize the behaviour of other components, e.g.
beam web/flange in compression, shear connectors,
concrete and reinforcement, and components of other
types of joint such as fin plate, web/flange cleat, to
obtain a complete database of joint component
behaviour so as to enable the performance of different
types of steel and composite joints to be quantified.
IMPLICATIONS OF JOINT BEHAVIOUR ON
STRUCTURE
Similar to research investigations at ambient
temperature, early studies of joint influence on
structural behaviour have largely been concerned
with how to exploit the bending moment resistance of
nominally pinned joints to enhance the limiting
temperature of the connected beams. An example of
such investigation is that of Liu[76] who numerically
studied the influence of flush end plate and extended
end plate joints, and found that beams with flush end
plate joints have similar fire resistance as if they were
simply supported. Using extended end plate joints
would increase the beam limiting temperature by
Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
STEELCONCRETE STRUCTURES IN FIRE 99
about 458C. Whilst any enhancement to the limiting
temperature of the connected beam is useful to have,
considering bending moment resistance only of the
joints in unlikely to allow the joint effects to be fully
appreciated. First, the quoted increase in beam
limiting temperature of 458C is unlikely to result in a
step change in the connected beam fire protection
strategy, e.g. to enable using unprotected steel beams.
Secondly, this type of investigation is based on the
assumption that the joints are treated as simply
supported at ambient temperature so that their extra
capacity can be exploited for fire safety design.
However, there has long been a strong push to utilize
the joint extra capacity at ambient temperature and
the semi-continuous design method is being more
widely taken up in practice. If the extra capacity of a
joint has already been used in semi-continuous
design at ambient temperature and the joint capacity
at ambient temperature is included to assess the
beams load ratio in fire, it is possible that the beam
may have lower fire resistance than if the beam were
designed as simply supported, both at ambient
temperature and under fire. Therefore, if only
bending performance of the joint is considered in fire,
it would be useful to quantify the joint influence when
both cold and fire design calculations are based on
semi-continuous action in the frame.
The impetus for recent intensive research studies on
joint behaviour in fire has come from observations of
the critical role played by joints in affecting the
behaviour of whole structures in fire, particularly
when structural deformations become very large. It is
not just about how much bending moment capacity a
joint would have. More importantly, it is about the
joint capacity to resist axial forces in the connected
beams as well as joint ductility. At large deflections in
the connected beam or during the cooling phase of
building after fire, tension forces (from either catenary
action or restrained thermal contraction of the beam)
develop in the connected beam. If these tension forces
can be resisted by the joints, the connected beam will
be able to survive very high temperatures without
causing a collapse in the structure[87,88]. On the other
hand, inadequate joint resistance to these tension
forces could cause fracture of some joint components,
leading to possible progressive collapse of the entire
structure. Furthermore, joint behaviour has direct
influence on another important requirement of fire
resistance design: the integrity of the fire
compartment. Joint characteristics determine both the
amount of joint deformation (via joint stiffness for
both rotation and extension) and the limits of joint
deformation (via joint ductility and strength) to
prevent integrity failure of the fire compartment.
It should be pointed out that the above review on
joint behaviour is concerned with joints between
steel/composite beams to steel H-columns. There is
very little research on joints to tubular columns, in
particular concrete filled tubular columns. A research
Prog. Struct. Engng Mater. 2005; 7:86102
100
project sponsored by CIDECT[89] tested eight stub
column/stub beam joints under bending in a
cruciform arrangement under the standard fire
exposure. Its chief conclusion is that all the joint
components (welds, bolts, fin plate) performed well
and there was no fracture. This research programme
provided some useful temperature measurement in
different parts of the joints, but because there was no
measurement of structural behaviour (e.g. deflections
and rotations, ultimate strength), it is not possible to
gain much understanding of structural behaviour of
these test joints. At present, the author is sponsored
by CIDECT and Corus Tubes to conduct a detailed
experimental and numerical study to quantify the
structural behaviour of this type of joints in
fire and research results will be published in due
course.
Compared with investigations on member
behaviour in fire, the joint behaviour topic has largely
been neglected until very recently. Various recent
events, including the World Trade Center building
collapse, have highlighted the importance of gaining a
thorough understanding of this subject. It is expected
that this subject will be the focus of intensive study in
the next few years.
Conclusions
This paper has discussed recent advances in
understanding structural behaviour of composite
structures under conditions of fire. It has reviewed the
most up-to-date research studies of composite floor
systems, composite columns and steel and composite
joints, taking into account the effects of whole
building behaviour wherever appropriate. There is no
doubt that tremendous progresses have been made in
this area in the last 10 years or so since the Cardington
large scale structural fire research programme. The
current high interest in this area, as a direct result of
the communitys response to the World Trade Center
tragedy, will ensure continued progress in the future.
Despite the recent great advances and achievements,
much still needs to be done and the following list is
only an indication of the topics that would benefit
from more detailed and comprehensive
investigations.
* Complete behaviour and failure mechanism of
floor systems at large deflections: effects of
different factors such as floor slab type, restraint
condition, type and arrangement of reinforcement,
different heating regime, accurate numerical
simulation, refinement of design calculation
methods.
* Behaviour of innovative structural solutions in fire:
long-span floor systems, composite floor system
with precast concrete slabs.
* Composite columns: improvement in numerical
simulations and design methods.
Copyright & 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
COMPOSITE CONSTRUCTION
* Joints: extensive research studies are necessary to
provide fundamental experimental data, detailed
quantification of joint component behaviour,
integration of joint analysis with global structural
analysis.
In addition, the following is a list of topics that have
not been discussed in any detail in the paper, but are
closely linked to the subject topic.
* Integrity of composite structures in fire:
consequence of integrity failure of fire
compartment on fire spread, condition of integrity
failure, allowable composite structural behaviour
to prevent integrity failure of fire compartment.
* Behaviour of natural fires and their effects on
structures: quantification of natural fire behaviour,
material properties under the influence of heating
rate.
* Fire risk assessment: in general, current research
studies exploit the reserve in structural strength
due to structural redundancy (structural
interactions and load redistribution) and large-
deflection behaviour. In many cases, these
advances have been used to justify reduction or
elimination of fire protection to composite
structures. It is inevitable that the probability of
failure of composite structures designed to the new
methods would be higher than that adopting the
more conservative approach. The increased
probability of structural failure may still be very
low, and not necessarily a problem. Nevertheless,
quantification of this increased probability (though
difficult to estimate) is necessary.
* Dissemination of information: structural fire
engineering has the potential to make substantial
changes to structural engineering and the
necessary information is at present with a small
number of researchers and engineers. Effective
dissemination is important to ensure maximization
of the benefit of advances in this area. It is worth
mentioning that the University of Manchester is
currently developing a web-based one-stop shop
(www.structuralfiresafety.com) to disseminate
information in this area.
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Y C Wang
School of Mechanical, Aerospace and
Civil Engineering (MACE),
University of Manchester,
PO Box 88,
Manchester M60 1QD, UK
E-mail: yong.wang@manchester.ac.uk
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