Temperature assesment of a vertical steel member subjected to localised fire (LOCAFI) : final report

The objective of this project is to provide designers with scientific evidence, put in design models and, in the future, in the regulations (Eurocodes) that will allow them to design steel columns subjected to localised fires such as those which may arise, for example, in car parks. In fact, at the time being, such evidence, models and regulations exist for beam located under the ceiling, but nothing is available for columns, and this situation may lead to unnecessary and excessive thermal insulation that jeopardizes the competitiveness of whole steel projects. Two different series of pool fire tests have been performed in order to determine the heat fluxes received by vertical members engulfed in the fire or situated outside the fire source. Different procedures have been used to perform these two series of tests but the combination of these programmes have provided a wide amount of data for the calibration of CFD models and analytical methods. An analytical method based on the existing Heskestad and Hasemi methods and on the innovative concept of virtual solid flame has been developed to allow the application of this method to vertical elements situated outside the fire source and horizontal elements situated at the ceiling when the flame does not impact the ceiling. After validation of this method, it was implemented in three software packages. Finally, a background document describing the test programme and a design guidance gathering the developed analytical method and application of this method to case studies have been written.