Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 652-667(2007)
FE SIMULATION OF SPACE STEEL FRAMES IN FIRE WITH WARPING EFFECT
Zhan-Fei Huang 1,* and Kang-Hai Tan 2
1Research Fellow, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798
2Assoc. Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798
* (Corresponding author: E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )
Received: 8 January 2007; Revised: 19 March 2007; Accepted: 28 March 2007
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ABSTRACT
Most structural fire resistance analyses are confined to 2-D frames. To gain a more in-depth understanding of the response of a steel frame at elevated temperatures, 3-D simulations are necessary. This paper outlines the formulation of a two-noded 3-D beam-column to study the response of a steel frame in fire. The program is capable of small-strain large deformation analysis. Warping effect, a significant phenomenon in thin-walled members, is considered in the formulation. Degradation of steel mechanical properties at elevated temperatures is also considered, while thermal gradient is considered by slicing a cross-section into discrete segments. Creep can be either implicitly or explicitly taken into account. Several widely-used beam-to-column connections are approximated as zero-length semi-rigid springs. Their nonlinear moment-rotation relationships at elevated temperature are incorporated into the program. Unloading of both material stress-strain curve and moment-rotation characteristics of a connection are accounted for. The Newton-Raphson method is employed for nonlinear solving procedure. At the latter part of this paper, the program is verified against benchmark tests. All of them demonstrate the accuracy and reliability of the program.
KEYWORDS
Finite element analysis, 3-D beam element, warping, fire, steel frame, creep
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