Fire after earthquake assessment of 3D reinforced concrete structures

• Published in: Engineering structures 2024-11, Vol.319, p.118889, Article 118889
• Main Authors: Haouach, Ismail, Kada, Abdelhak, Lamri, Belkacem, Piloto, Paulo A.G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computational Mechanics; Concrete Structures; Earthquake; Fire
• ISSN: 0141-0296
• DOI: 10.1016/j.engstruct.2024.118889

Despite that, an earthquake's occurrence can lead to dramatic effects with significant damage in urban areas, including human and material losses. Fire after an earthquake amplifies the overall impact and becomes a catastrophic event. Most constructions in Algeria are made of reinforced concrete, and current regulations overlook fires after earthquakes. Structural designs are inadequate to handle such events. This study aims to investigate the behaviour of 3D reinforced concrete frames, as part of a residential building, designed according to internal codes, CBA93 and RPA99 v2003. This 3D RC structure is exposed to several load levels of its vertical load bearing capacity. The structural system is assumed to undergo seismic scenarios characterised by various levels of story drift and damage level types. The structure is then exposed to the standard fire ISO834 model. Numerical investigations are carried out for thermo-mechanical analysis using the finite element software ANSYS, taking into account geometric and material non-linearities. Results highlight the significant impact of vertical loads, story drifts, fire scenarios, and structural damage on a building's response to fire following an earthquake. These factors collectively influence the collapse probabilities, underlining the importance of holistic risk assessment in structural design. ●Numerical Investigation of 3D reinforced concrete frames submitted to fire after earthquake (FAE).●Numerical validation for the earthquake analysis, using the experimental results developed by others.●Numerical validation for thermal and thermomechanical analysis under fire, using experimental results developed by others.●New design curves for the fire resistance are presented, depending on the load level, story drift and damage level.●The failure probability for FAE is presented as a function of time exposed to fire under different load levels.