THE TEMPERATURES ATTAINED BY UNPROTECTED STRUCTURAL STEELWORK IN EXPERIMENTAL NATURAL FIRES

The salient features of a collaborative test program, funded jointly by the British Steel Corporation and the Department of the Environment, are described in which the heating rates of a wide range of structural sections in fires of different severities were measured. For the purposes of this work a large fire compartment was built, in which wood and wood/plastic fuels were burnt under different ventilation conditions. The experimental observations are compared with various relationships proposed for the determination of the equivalent time of fire exposure. Design tables highlight those situations where unprotected steel beams and columns have sufficient inherent fire resistance.