ABSTRACT
Consolidated Fire Testing (CFT) merges physical element testing and numerical simulation to analyse the global behavior of structures subjected to fire. As the testing technique facilitates the investigation of the global structural behaviour, important effects in fire engineering like load redistribution as well as strength- and stiffness degradation can be comprehensively analysed using CFT. A testing procedure has been developed and is described in detail in this paper. It accounts for the physical element’s thermal expansion and involves a generic tangent stiffness update algorithm that captures the stiffness degradation of the experimental element throughout the course of the test both, at ambient and at elevated temperature. Results from two different CFT are presented and show the elligibility of the testing procedure.
