ABSTRACT
Fire tests on structures are expensive and time consuming. Because of this, the development of accurate predictive methods to simulate the behaviour of steel structures in fire has long been regarded as desirable. Earlier efforts concentrated on predicting the fire resistance time of isolated members to mimic directly the standard fire resistance test. Although some of these earlier attempts could also be used to give detailed information for the performance of a structural member in fire, e.g. variations of stresses and displacements as functions of the standard fire exposure time, the majority of these studies were only interested in predicting the ultimate load carrying capacity of the member at a certain fire exposure time or the standard fire resistance time of the member under the initially applied loading condition. These studies adequately served their purpose of quantifying the ultimate limit state of isolated structural members under fire conditions, however, they cannot consider the performance of complete structures. Moreover, these programs have limited capabilities and cannot simulate any advanced structural effects other than the basic flexural bending behaviour at small deflections.
