Critical parameters in deriving fire fragility functions for steel gravity frames

Fire fragility functions can be used to characterize the probabilistic vulnerability of buildings to fire in the context of urban resilience assessment. A methodology has been proposed to develop such functions for multi-story steel buildings. However, a large number of parameters with uncertainties play a role in the process of constructing the fragility functions. The goal of this research is to identify the critical parameters that most affect the global fire safety by investigating the sensitivity of the fragility functions to different input parameters. Sensitivity in parameters affecting the fire model, the heat transfer process and the thermo-mechanical response is examined. The effects of different design assumptions at the system level are also studied. The presented approach is useful for selecting the prevailing parameters in a fire reliability analysis and it provides important information for modeling tools that can be used to evaluate resilience for fire scenarios.