Heat transfer and structural response modelling of concrete filled steel hollow section columns

Numerical modelling is a very useful tool to predict the fire resistance of a structure, or to reproduce artificially what has happened during a real fire. SAFIR, a non linear computer code developed at the university of Liege-Belgium, is specifically written for modeling the behavior of structures subjected to fire. It allows a determination of the temperatures in the structure resulting from the fire and, in a subsequent analysis, determination of the successive positions of equilibrium of the structure until collapse. Ten steel hollow section columns filled with self-compacting concrete embedding another steel profile have been tested in the Fire Engineering Laboratory of the University of Liege - Belgium. SAFIR code has been used to simulate the thermal and structural behavior under fire conditions. A good agreement between numerical and experimental results has been obtained. This shows that SAFIR code can predict well the behavior of CFSHS columns subjected to fire.