Citation

Latham DJ, Kirby BR, Thomson G. Fire Safety J. 1987; 12(2): 139-152.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1987, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Current research is shedding new light on the behavoiur of steel structures in fire. The salient features of a collaborative test programme, funded jointly by the British Steel Corporation and the Department of the Environment, are described in which the heating rates of a wide range of structural sections in fires of different but known severities were measured. For the purposes of this work a large fire compartment was built, in which wood and wood/plastic fuels were burnt under different ventilation conditions and thermal properties of the enclosing surfaces.The experimental observations are compared with various relationships proposed for the determination of the equivalent time of fire exposure. Design tables highlight those situations where unprotected steel beams and columns have sufficient inherent fire resistance to be used in both single and multistorey buildings.