Probabilistic investigation of reinforced concrete structures under fire loading accounting for material and geometric uncertainties

• Published in: Advances in structural engineering 2023-05, Vol.26 (7), p.1307-1324
• Main Authors: Sosso, Batoma, Berke, Péter Z
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1369-4332; 2048-4011
• DOI: 10.1177/13694332221151019

The sensitivity of the structural response to variations of material and cross sectional geometrical parameters is investigated for reinforced concrete structures under fire loading. A relatively low cost 2D corotational layered beam finite element is employed in a reduced latin hypercube sampling framework for this purpose. The structural response is assessed in terms of vertical deflection versus time, failure time and cross sectional stress/strain distribution using standard fire curves. The numerical models represent experimentally tested cases in the literature and operate with experimentally derived parameter sets, when possible. A minimum set of three RVs, the bottom concrete cover thickness, steel and concrete yield stregths, out of the initial full set of 12 are identified that drastically reduces the number of RVs and thus the stochastic computation’s cost, while keeping a reasonable envelop for the results. The relationship between structural behavior, material degradation and data extracted from the cross sectional behavior is also successfully established and used to explain why the random set can be reduced to three parameters.