Temperature assessment of a vertical steel member subjected to localised fire - Valorisation

ended

LOCAFI+ represents the valorisation project of LOCAFI whose main objective was to provide designers calculation methods with scientific evidence that will allow them to design steel columns subjected to localised fires such as those that may arise, for example, in car parks. In fact, at the time being, such evidence, models and regulations exist for beams 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. Within LOCAFI, number of tests and numerical investigations enabled to gain comprehensive understanding of the involved phenomena that led to the quantification of convective and radiative heat fluxes received by a column subjected to a localised fire. This combination of experimental and numerical investigation also led to the definition of two calculation methods: (i) a quite complex method implemented into FE software and (ii) a simplified method implemented into the existing user-friendly free software OZone and aimed at being introduced into the Eurocodes. The technical objective of LOCAFI+ is to disseminate the methodology for the fire design of columns under localised fire to practicing engineers in various countries by exploiting the results obtained in LOCAFI. The transfer of the developed calculation methods into practice will be achieved by national seminars and clearly structured design manuals.