Investigation of Fire Damaged Reinforced Concrete Walls with Axial Force

Reinforced concrete (RC) shear wall system of residential buildings is popular in South Korea. RC walls are subjected to axial forces in common and the effect of axial forces on the strength loss of the fire damaged walls has not been investigated. This paper aims at investigating temperature distribution on fire damaged concrete walls having different axial loads. In the experiments, a variable of specimens is axial force ratio. RC walls are fabricated with 150mm of wall thicknesses, 750mm of lengths and 1,300mm of heights having concrete strength of 24MPa. After curing, specimens are heated on one surface with ISO-834 standard time-temperature curve for 2 hours and temperature distributions during the test are measured using thermocouples inside the walls. The experimental results show that the temperature of the RC walls exposed to fire increases as axial force ratio increases. To verify the experiments, finite element (FE) models are generated for coupled temperature-structure analyses. The analytical results of thermal behaviors are in good agreement with the experimental results. The predicted displacement of the walls decreases when the axial force increases. 

Deformation Characteristics of Fire Damaged and Rehabilitated Normal Strength Concrete Beams

In recent years, fire accidents have been steadily increased and the amount of property damage caused by the accidents has gradually raised. Damaging building structure, fire incidents bring about not only such property damage but also strength degradation and member deformation. As a result, the building structure undermines its structural ability. Examining the degradation and the deformation is very important because reusing the building is more economical than reconstruction. Therefore, engineers need to investigate the strength degradation and member deformation well, and make sure that they apply right rehabilitation methods. This study aims at evaluating deformation characteristics of fire damaged and rehabilitated normal strength concrete beams through both experiments and finite element analyses. For the experiments, control beams, fire damaged beams and rehabilitated beams are tested to examine deformation characteristics. Ten test beam specimens with compressive strength of 21MPa are fabricated and main test variables are selected as cover thickness of 40mm and 50mm and fire exposure time of 1 hour or 2 hours. After heating, fire damaged beams are air-recurred for 2 months and rehabilitated beams are repaired with polymeric cement mortar after being removed the fire damaged concrete cover. All beam specimens are tested under four points loading. FE analyses are executed to investigate the effects of main parameters applied to experimental study. Test results show that both maximum load and stiffness of the rehabilitated beams are higher than those of the fire damaged beams. In addition, predicted structural behaviors from the analyses also show good rehabilitation effect and the predicted load-deflection curves are similar to the experimental results. For the further, the proposed analytical method can be used to predict deformation characteristics of fire damaged and rehabilitated concrete beams without suffering from time and cost consuming of experimental process.

Investigation of Fire Damaged Concrete Using Nonlinear Resonance Vibration Method

This paper attempts to evaluate the effect of fire damage on concrete by using nonlinear resonance vibration method, one of the nonlinear nondestructive method. Concrete exhibits not only nonlinear stress-strain relation but also hysteresis and discrete memory effect which are contained in consolidated materials. Hysteretic materials typically show the linear resonance frequency shift. Also, the shift of resonance frequency is changed according to the degree of micro damage. The degree of the shift can be obtained through nonlinear resonance vibration method. Five exposure scenarios were considered in order to make different internal micro damage. Also, the effect of post-fire-curing on fire-damaged concrete was taken into account to conform the change in internal damage. Hysteretic nonlinearity parameter was obtained by amplitudedependent resonance frequency shift after specific curing periods. In addition, splitting tensile strength was measured on each sample to characterize the variation of residual strength. Then, a correlation between the hysteretic nonlinearity parameter and residual strength was proposed from each test result.

Evaluating Residual Mechanical and Physical Properties of Concrete at Elevated Temperatures

This paper presents the results of an experimental  study on the effects of elevated temperature on compressive and  flexural strength of Normal Strength Concrete (NSC), High Strength  Concrete (HSC) and High Performance Concrete (HPC). In addition,  the specimen mass and volume were measured before and after  heating in order to determine the loss of mass and volume during the  test. In terms of non-destructive measurement, ultrasonic pulse  velocity test was proposed as a promising initial inspection method  for fire damaged concrete structure. 100 Cube specimens for three  grades of concrete were prepared and heated at a rate of 3°C/min up  to different temperatures (150, 250, 400, 600, and 900°C). The results  show a loss of compressive and flexural strength for all the concretes  heated to temperature exceeding 400°C. The results also revealed that  mass and density of the specimen significantly reduced with an  increase in temperature.