Citation

Wong MB, Ghojel JI. Fire Safety J. 2003; 38(2): 187-201.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The aim of using fire protection in a building is to reduce the rate of temperature rise of its structural components in case of fire. For protected structural steel, the thermal properties of the insulation materials affect the rate of temperature rise and are crucial in determining the minimum requirements for fire safety for both the steel and the insulation materials. The determination of the required thickness of the insulation materials can be performed by means of test results, analytical solutions or numerical methods. The current Eurocode 3 provides simple analytical solutions for estimating the temperature rise of both protected and unprotected structural steel in a fire. This paper presents a sensitivity analysis to examine the appropriateness of using these analytical solutions for structural steel components protected with insulation materials of contrasting properties including thermal conductivity and density. Results of the analysis show that, for certain types of insulation materials, the temperatures predicted by the Eurocode may differ substantially from those by exact analytical solution. An alternative formulation is presented when these types of insulation materials are used for fire protection of structural steel.