ABSTRACT
An advanced computational procedure for assessing the fire resistance of structural members, based on a fully probabilistic approach, is presented and discussed in detail on the example of a steel beam. In the proposed design algorithm the required safety level is differentiated depending on the risk specified for a failure caused by a fire potentially threatening the structure under consideration. The measure of the sought resistance is the critical temperature of the whole structure related to such a time of a fire exposure after which the probability of exhausting the ability to safely transfer the loads applied to this structure turns out to be so large that it cannot be accepted. It seems that the estimates calculated in this way are more reliable and better justified compared to those obtained from the conventional analysis because the random nature of both the external actions applied to the structure and the steel resistance reduced due to the high temperature exposure is included in the formal model.
