FIRE AND MATERIALS

Fire Mater. 2004; 28:269–280 (DOI: 10.1002/fam.867)

Structural behaviour of an open car park under

real fire scenarios

Bin Zhaon and Jo.el Kruppa

CTICM, Fire and Testing Division, Domaine de Saint Paul, BP 64, 78470 Saint-Remy-Le"s-Chevreuse, France

SUMMARY
During two successive European research projects involving CTICM (France), ARBED (Luxembourg)
and TNO (Netherlands), several fire tests were performed on cars and on a real car park made of steel
columns and steel beams connected to composite slabs. Although there has been a drastic increase of
combustible product in cars, the experimental results have given convincing evidence that fire protection of
the steel structure is not necessary to obtain overall stability.
Parallel to the above experimental investigations, numerical analysis was also performed in which the fire
development, the heating of the structure and structural behaviour during the fire were studied with
different numerical models. However, the present paper focuses mainly on the modelling of structural
behaviour. It shows that the global structural behaviour (composite floor and steel column) subjected to
localized heating from cars may be very accurately predicted by 3D modelling in which the lateral buckling
of the steel beam, the membrane and diaphragm effects of the floor are taken into account.
In addition, the results of a parametric study are presented in which it is shown that the use of 3D
modelling in the analysis leads to the possibility of building open car parks with more economical steel and
concrete composite structures. Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

KEY WORDS: fire resistance; fire test; composite structure; car park; numerical modelling

1. INTRODUCTION

In some countries, the fire resistance requirements for open car parks based on ISO-fire are
rather high [1]. For this reason it is worth analysing the behaviour of the loadbearing structures
in the case of real car fires.
One of the most common designs of such loadbearing structures is based on composite
steel–concrete beams and steel columns.
An analysis of the fire behaviour of such car parks needs to consider four steps of modelling:
fire model, structural model, heat transfer model and mechanical model [2,3].

n
Correspondence to: B. Zhao, CTICM, Fire and Testing Division, Domaine de Saint Paul, BP 64,
78470 Saint-Remy-L"es-Chevreuse, France.

Contract/grant sponsor: European Steel and Coal Community

Received 27 April 2004

Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 20 February 2004
270 B. ZHAO AND J. KRUPPA

From previous experimental and theoretical studies, detailed knowledge was obtained on
both:

- the heat release of burning cars, for the fire model [4,5],
- the mechanical behaviour of composite beams, for the structural and mechanical models [6].

These allowed numerical modelling of the behaviour of car park structures under various fire
scenarios from which the results show that, with some constructional details, open car parks do
not need fire protection for the steel section to have the necessary level of fire resistance.
In order to scientifically prove these conclusions, a European research project involving
CTICM (France}the coordinator), ARBED (Luxembourg) and TNO (Netherlands) was
launched in 1999. Within this research project, an open car park using unprotected steel and
concrete composite structure was specially built in France under which two main fire tests were
carried out.
These tests have provided very encouraging and confirmatory results about the structural
behaviour of open car parks in a real fire and the accuracy of numerical calculation methods.
However, it was found that the use of 3D modelling in the analysis could be necessary. In fact,
this advanced approach has been used largely in another European research project [7,8], the
famous Cardington fire tests.

2. CAR BURNING

Based on the energy released in a fire, European cars can be sorted in five categories (Table I).
For each category an average mass and the energy released can be found (Table II).
Car fires have been studied for many years. But the study of the rate of heat release of cars
began only with car tests carried out by VTT in Finland (1991) [4,9] and by the Fire Research
Station in UK and INERIS in France [10]. The aim of a new series of tests performed at
CTICM (Maizi"eres-L"es-Metz - France) within a European research project [3] was to record the
rate of heat release by considering some additional parameters:

- the new generation of cars,

- the actual location of cars in a car park with an existing ceiling above the car, the car close to
a wall or in a corner,
- the spread of fire from one car to another.

Table I. Definition of European car categories (of the 1990s).

Make Category 1 Category 2 Category 3 Category 4 Category 5
Peugeot 106 306 406 605 806
Renault Twingo-Clio M!egane Laguna Safrane Espace
Citro.en Saxo ZX Xantia XM Evasion
Ford Fiesta Escort Mondeo Scorpio Galaxy
Opel Corsa Astra Vectra Omega Frontera
Fiat Punto Bravo Tempra Croma Ulysse
Volkswagen Polo Golf Passat Sharan

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Table II. Average car mass, mass of combustible materials and energy release for
different category of cars.
Category Car mass (kg) Mass of combustible materials (kg) Related energy (MJ)
1 850 200 6000
2 1000 250 7500
3 1250 320 9500
4 1400 400 12000
5 1400 400 12000

Figure 1. Calorimeter hood for testing up to two cars.

The experimental device is illustrated in Figure 1.

In general, during the tests, the cars were equipped as in reality with oil, four tyres and a spare
tyre, and the fuel tank was 2/3 full.
Ten tests were carried out in 1995 and 1996, involving 15 cars of the old (1970s/1980s) and
new generation (1990s): five tests were performed with one car and the other five with two cars.
In the first seven tests, the car was ignited with 1.5 l of petrol in an open tray under the left
front seat. The left front window was completely open, and the right front window was half
open. All doors were closed. In the case of the test with two cars, the doors and windows of the
second one were closed.
In the last three tests, the cars were ignited under the car at the gearbox level with 1 l of petrol,
similar to the testing procedure sometimes used by car manufacturers.
The results in terms of the rate of heat released using an oxygen consumption technique [11]
on a car of category 3 (of old and new generation) are shown in Figure 2.

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272 B. ZHAO AND J. KRUPPA

Figure 2. Heat released from cars of category 3, old and new generation.

In the tests involving two cars, to study the possible fire spread from one car to another, it
appeared that the second car, at approximately 70 cm from the burning car (average distance in
European car parks), ignited in all cases about 12 min after the ignition of the first car. This
ignition was due either to the tyres or the rubber around the doors.

3. EXPERIMENTS IN AN OPEN CAR PARK

3.1. Structure of tested open car park

In order to perform fire tests as close as possible to reality, an open car park with a floor surface
of 480 m2 (15 m  32 m) and a height of 3 m (see Figure 3) was built.
Its structure was composed of:
* unprotected steel columns HEA180 (edge columns) and HEB200 (central columns),
* composite beams, composed of unprotected steel beams (IPE 550, IPE 400 and IPE 500)
connected to the composite slab,
* composite slab with a total thickness of 120 mm (COFRASTRA40).

Two main fire tests were carried out in which cars of the latest generation were burned under
the structure in order to investigate the fire development as well as the structural behaviour. The
fire scenario used involves three cars parked together (see Figure 3), corresponding to the most
severe fire scenario according to statistical results obtained from the fire brigade concerning
open car parks [12].

3.2. Test results

During the tests, the fire always started by ignition under the middle car at the level of the
gearbox and the fire continued until the full burn-out of the three cars. This test procedure is
illustrated in Figure 4.

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Figure 3. Tested open car park.

Figure 4. Summary of a fire test involving three cars.

The main observations of the test results can be summarized as follows:

* fire spread from one car to another always occurred, but the propagation time was quite
different depending upon the wind condition and the orientation of the cars with respect to
the wind direction. It was found that with a strong wind blowing from the engine to the
rear of the cars (test 2 – Figure 3), fire spread quite quickly from one car to another and
with a weak wind blowing, from the rear to the engine of the cars, (test 1 – Figure 3), it
took a much longer time (Figure 5), so that the time at which the fire peak occurred was
very different. However, in both cases, the maximum temperature of the structure was
almost the same.

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274 B. ZHAO AND J. KRUPPA

Figure 5. Measured temperature of both hot gases (fire) and steel beams versus time.

Figure 6. Measured vertical displacements of steel beams versus time.

* the measured maximum vertical displacement was different between test 1 and test 2
(Figure 6). This is due to the fact that in test 1, the fire shifted from one car to another quite
slowly and the wind pushed the flames outside the span of the beams, so that the heating
area of the structure remained small. But in the second test, the fire spread quickly from
one car to the other two cars and with the wind pushing the flames towards the mid-span,
created a much larger simultaneous heating area of the structure, especially for the
secondary beams leading to much larger deformation of the structure.
* even if the fire spread was quite different, in the two tests these deformations would be far
from leading to the collapse of the structure.

4. NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF FIRE TESTS

Since test 2 was obviously more severe than test 1, this test was used specially as a reference
example for comparison with numerical analysis results to check the validity and the accuracy of
numerical models.
The numerical analysis was carried out with both computer codes SISMEF (2D) [6,13,14] and
ANSYS (3D) [15]. The 2D modelling with SISMEF used only beam elements (composite beams

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Figure 7. Structural model of tested open car park and applied load in test 2.

Figure 8. Simulated deformed structure for test 2 at maximum heating phase.

and columns) and 3D modelling combined several types of elements. The detailed 3D modelling
is shown in Figure 7. In this modelling, the principal elements used were as follows:

* multi-layer shell element for solid part of composite slab

* beam elements for both concrete ribs and steel decking
* beam elements for additional reinforcing steel in concrete slab
* beam elements for steel members (beams and columns)

In this analysis, all steel beams were considered to have a full rigid connection with the
composite slab in both 2D and 3D modellings.
The calculated results of 3D modelling for test 2 are given in Figures 8 and 9 in terms of
vertical displacement field, respectively, at 15 and 70 min of fire. The maximum deflection
obtained at 15 min of fire was about 177 mm. At this moment, the structure at the adjacent span
generally deflected upward (Figure 8).

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276 B. ZHAO AND J. KRUPPA

Figure 9. Simulated structure for test 2 at cooling phase of fire.

Figure 10. Comparison of vertical displacement between calculation and experiment for test 2.

However, the structural behaviour was totally different after the fire had continued for 70 min
(Figure 9). The structure, in particular the spanning beam, rigidly connected to steel columns,
which deflected downward during the heating phase was now deflected upward during the
cooling phase, when the structure at the adjacent span, which was not heated, deflected upward.
This certainly led to a very large force at the level of beam to column connection since it was
observed the rupture of some bolts (in particular those located at the lower part of the steel plate
connection), during the cooling phase of both tests.
A comparison was made between the calculated displacement results and the measured
displacement results (Figures 10 and 11). It can be seen in this comparison that:
* 3D numerical modelling agreed quite well with experimental results for both heating
and cooling phases. The slight differences may be explained by the fact that for some part
of the structure, for instance for beam 2, the temperature measurement was not detailed
enough to give an accurate temperature field for numerical simulation and the
approximation made would thus cause the discrepancy between measurement and

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Figure 11. Comparison of axial displacement at end of secondary beam 2 between

calculation and experiment for test 2.

numerical results. However, these differences were quite small so the adopted numerical
modelling was considered accurate enough for predicting the structural behaviour of an
open car park.
* The results obtained with 2D numerical modelling were in general much more severe than
the experimental results for both vertical and axial displacements.

This comparison shows that 3D modelling is more appropriate for predicting the structural
behaviour of a composite floor system in a fire.
The open car park was designed using numerical modelling for the worst fire scenario
according to previous experimental results [3], in which the predicted maximum temperature of
steel members was more than 9008 C. However, this temperature was not reached during the test
(Figure 5). The overestimation of the temperature and the use of pessimistic 2D modelling led to
a quite conservative design of the structure which required not only additional steel
reinforcement for all secondary beams through the central part of composite slab but also
rigid joints between the secondary beams and the steel columns. In this case, it becomes
interesting to assess the influence of these structural parameters in the case of 3D numerical
modelling. A short parametric study was then carried out in which following parameters were
investigated:
* additional reinforcement for secondary beams
* joint condition between secondary beam and columns
The heating of the structure was the same as obtained in test 2. The first investigated
parameter was the additional reinforcing steel for secondary beams to increase the fire resistance
of these beams. In order to study it, the calculation was carried out without these reinforcing
steels (for the tested open car park, these reinforcing steels were about 965 mm2/m with a length
of 12 m). The vertical displacements of beam 1 and beam 2 obtained with this assumption were
compared with those of the real structure. It was found that the contribution of these additional
reinforcing steel was quite small under this fire scenario since the displacement difference was
only about 7% (see Figure 12).
The second parameter was the joint condition between secondary beams and columns. For
the tested structure, all secondary beams were rigidly connected to steel columns. Certainly, it

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278 B. ZHAO AND J. KRUPPA

Figure 12. Comparison of vertical displacement of both beam 1 and beam 2 with
different condition of reinforcement.

Figure 13. Comparison of vertical displacement of both beam 1 and beam 2 with
different joint condition between steel beams and columns.

would give better fire resistance for these beams during the heating up of the structure.
However, during the cooling phase, plastic deformation of the beams produced large internal
forces leading to some damage to the joint elements, in particular the rupture of bolts. This type
of damage is very troublesome for the repair of the structure after fire. If a simple joint were
used, a larger rotation of capacity of the steel beam in respect to the steel column could prevent
the damage of joints as observed at the joints between the secondary beams and primary beams).
But the question is how the structure will behave in a fire if simple joints were adopted. So a
numerical analysis was also carried out using a modified structure for which the additional
reinforcing steel for secondary beams was neglected and in particular simple joints were used
between all secondary beams and steel columns. The corresponding results are illustrated in
Figure 13. One can see that the difference was very small between rigidly and simply jointed
structures.
This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that even the steel beam has a simple joint with
the steel column, the continuity of the composite beam and the transmission of the hogging

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moment are still available through the concrete slab. This result has a large importance. The
findings imply that simple joints could be used between steel beams and columns to obtain the
same level of fire resistance for the fire scenario in test 2.

6. CONCLUSION

Fire involving the new generation of cars were more severe than those involving cars from the
1970s and 1980s due to a marked increase of combustible products. Nevertheless, fire tests
performed in a real open car park have shown that unprotected steel structure can still be used
without the risk of collapse.
Fire test results were also used for checking the accuracy of the numerical simulations with
both 2D and 3D numerical modelling. It can be concluded that:
* 2D analysis may be used to predict the structural behaviour of a composite floor exposed
to fire in a conservative way,
* if steel beams are connected to a concrete floor, it is possible to avoid the use of rigid joints
between steel beams and columns which could be of great benefit to the structural repair
after the fire,
* in order to make full use of the advantages of a composite floor under a fire situation and
to design the structure more economically, 3D numerical investigation is necessary.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank D. Joyeux and H. Leborgne, who managed and performed the fire tests in
the experimental car park building and Guillem Rojas for his work in preparing the data for numerical
calculations.
Acknowledgement is also made to the European Steel and Coal Community for its financial sponsoring
of this research and our other partners ProfilARBED (mainly J.B. Schleich and L.G. Cajot), who, in
addition provided the steel sections and TNO (mainly L. Twilt), as well as PAB Usinor for having provided
the steel decking of the car park.

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