Fire Flame Influence on the Behavior of reinforced Concrete Beams Affected by Repeated Load

Abstract

The influence and hazard of fire flame are one of the most important parameters that affecting the durability and strength of structural members. This research studied the influence of fire flame on the behavior of reinforced concrete beams affected by repeated load. Nine self- compacted reinforced concrete beams were castellated, all have the same geometric layout (0.15x0.15x1.00) m, reinforcement details and compressive strength (50 Mpa).

To estimate the effect of fire flame disaster, four temperatures were adopted (200, 300, 400 and 500) ^oC and two method of cooling were used (graduated and sudden). In the first cooling method, graduated, the tested beams were leaved to cool in air while in the second method, sudden, water splash was used to reduce the temperature. Eight of the tested beams were divided in to four groups, each were burned to one of the adopted temperature for about half an hour and cooled by the adopted cooling methods (one by sudden cooling and the other by graduated cooling). After burning and cooling the beams were tested under the effect of repeated load (loading – unloading) for five cycle and then up to failure.

As a compared with the non- burned beam, the results indicated that the ultimate load capacity of the tested beams were reduced by (16, 23, 54 and 71)% after being burned to (200, 300, 400 and 500) ^oC , respectively, for a case of sudden cooling and by (8, 14, 36 and 64)% , respectively, for a case of graduated cooling. It was also found that the effect of sudden cooling was greater than that in a case of graduated cooling.

Regarding the failure mode, there was a different between the non-burred beam and the other ones even that all of them had the same geometric layout, compressive strength and reinforcement details. The failure mode for all burned beams was combined shear- flexure failure which was belong to the reduction in the compressive strength of the concrete due to the effect of the temperature rising , while the failure mode of the non-burned beam was flexure failure which was compatible with the preliminary design. It was also detected that the residual deflection proportion directly with the temperature, as the temperature increase to (200, 300, 400 and 500) ^oC the residual deflection compared with the non-burned beam increased by (32, 48, 326 and 358)% for a case of sudden cooling and by (13, 29, 303 and 332)%  for a case of graduated cooling. Another effect was appear represented by the method of cooling, the results showed that the sudden cooling had more effect on the residual deflection than the graduated cooling by (15-6)% approximately. To vanish the residual deflection, numbers of cycle (loading-unloading) were required. It was found that this number increase as the temperature of burning increased and it’s also larger in a case of sudden cooling.