Steel–concrete composite columns are used extensively in modern buildings in recent decades due to the benefits of combining two construction materials: reinforced concrete is inexpensive, massive, and stiff, while steel members are strong, lightweight, and easy to assemble. For concrete-encased composite structural members, an additional advantage is that the concrete used for encasing a structural steel not only increases its stiffness, but also protects it from fire damage and local buckling failure. Traditionally, the fire resistance of composite structural members has been determined in standard fire tests, with the temperature-time curves representing more severe heating conditions compared to that which occurs in many typical natural fire compartments. To design a concrete encased H-section steel structure safely and economically, it is necessary to calculate temperature distribution in composite steel-concrete columns under natural fire. In this paper, the program TFIELD written by first author is used to calculate the temperature distribution in a concrete encased H-section steel column under natural fire and ISO 834 fire. The calculating results under the standard ISO 834 fire and a natural fire have been compared which exhibit obvious differences.
Reliability analysis of intumescent coating protected steel members under the standard fire condition
