Abstract

Concrete structures have a favorable position in the building industry with regard to their performance of fire resistance. The understanding of their behavior is essential for reliable analysis and design. This paper is mainly concerned with concrete building performance subjected to localized fire arrangement. Special attention has been given to the finite element model of a seven-story concrete building representing a typical commercial office building designed to European Standard. Very large displacements happened on horizontal direction of the floor slabs due to thermal expansions. The large displacement induced lateral movement of the floor slabs and created additional moments to external columns. Design engineers should ensure that the external columns have ability to accommodate lateral displacements during fire. Although, the thin external columns of the model can withstand these movements due to beneficial effect of membrane action developed to the floor slabs. Present analysis indicates that the performance of the whole structure is substantially different from the single isolated structural member behavior during fire. Although the current design procedures are conservative, design engineers have to consider the detrimental and beneficial effects of lateral slabs' thermal expansion in complete structure.

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