STRUCTURAL DESIGN FORUM

Fire Resistant Design

Nestor Iwankiw, Hughes Associates, Inc.
The forum entitled, Selecting the Right Fire Resistant Design by Alfawakhiri and Carter published in this Practice Periodical in February 2005 highlighted some fundamental building code requirements for re resistance and life safety, with a particular focus on rated designs for structural steel. In this months forum, I build on Alfawakhiri and Carters original article and present information which goes beyond structural steel to include re resistance basics for other common construction materialsconcrete, masonry, and wood. This new article is preceded by comments by Longinow et al. about the February 2005 forum and is followed by a response from Alfawakhiri and Carter. My article is in response to these authors fundamental concerns and suggestions.

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Comments on Selecting the Right Fire Resistant Design by Farid Alfawakhiri and Charles Carter, Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction, 2005, Volume 10, No. 1, 37.
We appreciate the opportunity to read and comment on the article by Alfawakhiri and Carter. Fire protection is an important aspect of building design, and as mentioned in this article, structural engineers are generally not familiar with re safety issues. In fact, traditional structural engineering courses do not include re protection as one of the design topics. So this article was an important feature in the Practice Periodical. Because of the valuable service the article provides, we recommend that the editorial board for the Practice Periodical seek authors who can provide similar tutorials for other common design and construction materials such as reinforced concrete, masonry, and timber. The article is a good introduction to the re protection of steel framed structures. As such, it might have been more accurately entitled, Selecting the Right Fire Resistant Design for Steel Structures. The title re engineer that appears in several parts of this article should have been re protection engineer. It is these individuals who provide the actual materials and re protection methods that give a building the required re rating. The section Fire Protection Methods could be made clearer up front, in that re protection systems may consist of coatings, coverings, enclosures, sprinkling systems, etc. The authors chose to reference IBC 2000. The newer IBC 2003 appears to be different, at least on the editorial level, and we feel that references in the text should have been presented with respect to the newer code. A. Longinow; Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology. K. Mniszewski; FX Engineering, Hinsdale, Ill. T. Miller; Varley-Campbell Associates, Oak Brook, Ill.

Authors Response to Comments by Longinow, Mniszewski, and Miller

The authors would like to thank A. Longinow, K. Mniszewski, and T. Miller for their constructive comments, most of which we agree with. The alternative suggested title for the article would have been more correct, although we preferred the shorter version over added correctness. On a similar note, we used the commonly abbreviated title of re engineer instead of the correct complete title of re protection engineer as dened by the Society of Fire Protection Engineers SFPE. We also agree that listing the various re protection methods up front in the relevant section could have made it easier to read. The reason for referencing IBC 2000 the most widely adopted model code in the U.S. at the time of article publication was explained up front in the article. We felt it would be most appropriate for an article in a Practice Periodical to reference the most common code used in the eld, recognizing the time lag between the introduction of the newer editions of model codes and their adoption by local jurisdictions. In retrospect, we could also note that the content of the article is fully consistent with the 2003 edition of the IBC. In conclusion, the authors support the call for broadening the discussion of re resistant design issues to all common structural materials, given that re-related concerns are not limited to structural steel. Farid Alfawakhiri, M. ASCE, American Iron and Steel Institute, Naperville, Ill. Charles J. Carter, M. ASCE, American Institute of Steel Construction, Chicago, Ill.

Structural Fire Resistant Design Basics for Concrete, Masonry, and Wood Nestor Iwankiw, Hughes Associates, Inc
This forum intends to broaden the coverage, as requested in the Comments and Discussion, beyond structural steel to re resistance basics for the other common construction materials concrete, masonry, and wood. Reaction of Structural Materials to Fire Combustibility is one broad, and important, re classication of building materials. Noncombustible materials will degrade under

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the higher temperatures of a re, but will not burn. Combustiblematerials will not only degrade at higher temperatures, but also ignite and burn, thereby adding to the fuel contents during a re. Building materials in the ensuing section will be considered within the context of their use as primary, load-bearing elements that are necessary to preserve the structural safety of the building in preventing partial or total collapse. The traditional building materials have been steel, concrete, masonry and wood. Wood is the only combustible material of these four. In all cases, visible damage/distortions and degradation potentially including cracking, dehydration, loss of section, charring, etc. of the thermal and mechanical properties of all building materials occur under prolonged elevated temperatures. Deections of structural members during the longer duration hot res post-ashover can reach many inches, or even several feet. This is at least an order of magnitude greater than the small elastic deections, usually no more than about 12 in., that are normally contemplated for design service. Hence, this property deterioration and the effects of large thermal deformations on the load-carrying capabilities of the materials during a re are two important effects in the re resistance engineering of a building. Structural Fire Resistance Structural re resistance can be evaluated in one of four ways, or a combination thereof: 1. Empirically, through standardized re tests and published ratings based on ASTM E 119, and their derived correlation equations; 2. Other special-purpose re tests; 3. Elementary calculation methods that encompass heat transfer principles and the residual strength of individual structural elements in a simplied manner; and 4. More comprehensive and sophisticated modeling of res and the resulting structural framing behavior. Often, the standard re endurance rating times are based exclusively on material temperatures not exceeding the critical ASTM E 119 temperature. More realistic, full-scale re tests of multi-bay or multistory frames are conducted relatively infrequently due to their high costs and time. The rst approach using prequalied E 119 re resistance ratings is by far the most commonly used due to its relative ease, simplicity, and long history of successful applications in the prescriptive codes. Consequently, these traditional methods based on the standard E 119 re test are the principal subjects of this article. The annually published assembly ratings and listings in the Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. UL Fire Resistance Directory 2006 provide a well-established source of information in this regard for proprietary products used with various construction materials in oor, roof, wall, beam and column assemblies. The ASCE/SFPE 29-99 standard Fig. 1 contains related design coefcients, tabulated values, and simple calculation methods based on E 119 criteria to determine re resistance times for a range of generic construction of all the commonly used building materials. Application of more advanced re resistance solutions will require an explicit representation of the basic thermal and mechanical material properties at elevated temperatures, such as yield and ultimate stress, modulus of elasticity, coefcient of thermal expansion, thermal conductivity, and specic heat. The detailed material response and property variations at high temperatures of re concrete, masonry and wood materials are beyond the scope of this overview, but may be readily obtained from other sources, such as SFPE 2003.

Fig. 1. ASCE/SFPE 29-99 Standard for Calculation Methods for Structural Fire Protection ASCE 1999

Concrete and Masonry Concrete and masonry are noncombustible materials with relatively low thermal conductivity. Their structural design often results in comparatively heavier and more massive members that provide a desirable heat sink for re resistance. Because of this thermal mass effect, concrete and masonry construction has also been routinely used for thermal insulation and/or re barriers. Ordinary concrete is the heaviest inorganic material, with a density ranging from about 100 150 lb/ ft3 for lightweight and normal-weight aggregates, respectively. Similar to gypsum, concrete materials release water of crystallization when exposed to high temperatures. The re endurance time of concrete is increased by approximately three percent for each percent of entrapped water. Concrete offers a harder, tougher and more durable long-term re protection than other lower density products, but with the expected tradeoff in associated weight and cost. Concrete has often been the material of choice for rewalls and horizontal separations oors in buildings. Masonry can be used in much the same way as concrete, for both load-bearing and re protection applications. Likewise, its relatively heavy weight re protection products often makes it a less attractive choice, in terms of economy, when used solely for building re protection of structural columns or beams. On the other hand, concrete and masonry assemblies remain viable and competitive alternatives for combined load-bearing and re resistance applications or re separations.

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Similar to other construction materials, concrete and masonry experience property degradation with increasing temperatures, as well as visible cracking or spalling damage in concrete. The concrete property variations are dependent on the weight density lightweight or normal weight, its compressive strength level high or normal, water content water-cement ratio, type of aggregate and the reinforcing bars or bers in the concrete. Higher internal moisture content will benecially delay the temperature rise in the material, but it also may cause explosive spalling in some cases through pore pressure build-up. Spalling can not only reduce the member load-bearing cross section, but also directly expose any interior steel reinforcing to the re. The densities of normal NWC and lightweight LWC concrete effectively remain unchanged up to a temperature of about 800C, when normal weight density begins to rapidly deteriorate by approximately 2550%. At room temperature, the baseline concrete compressive strength, f c , can vary between about 20 55 MPa or 3,000 8,000 psi. Similar to steel, the strength reductions of these normal strength concretes are negligible up to about 300C about 600F material temperature. The concrete strength losses greatly increase at higher temperatures. In the range of 500600C, the stiffness modulus of elasticity and strength reductions due to heating can be roughly about 50%. NWC exhibits greater and increasing propensity for thermal expansion than its lightweight counterpart. Thermal conductivity also mainly depends on the nature of the aggregate in the concrete mix. In general, LWC has a lower thermal conductivity, lower specic heat, and lower thermal expansion at higher temperatures than NWC. For these reasons, LWC is a better thermal insulator per unit volume that NWC. More precise values for the hightemperature variations of all these thermomechanical properties can be found in references, such as SFPE 2003. High strength concrete HSC, often dened as having a compressive strength, f c , greater than about 55 MPa 8,000 psi, has a unique temperature dependence, different from that of either regular NWC or LWC. HSC is more susceptible to explosive spalling when exposed to severe re conditions. Fiber-reinforced concrete represents another class of concrete material. Discontinuous steel and polypropylene bers are added to the concrete mix to enhance its strength and ductility. In general, there is relatively less high-temperature information available on ber-reinforced concrete than with the more conventional steel bars. However, it is recognized that the addition of polypropylene bers can be effective in minimizing explosive spalling during a re. There is also some available data on steel berreinforced concrete SFRC at elevated temperatures. Concrete structures can be unreinforced plain, reinforced, prestressed, and composite. When concrete is commonly used with reinforcing or prestressing steel, or in composite designs, the temperatures developed in this companion steel material govern the re resistance ratings of the concrete member, since the concrete is usually so much larger and massive compared to the steel reinforcing. Typically, the so-called concrete cover, or distance from the interior steel to the outside concrete surface, provides the re protection. For unreinforced concrete or masonry, the effective member thickness is the primary determinant of its re resistance rating for a given aggregate/material type. ACI 216.1-97/ TMS 0216-97 Fig. 2 provides an excellent source of wellaccepted re resistance design provisions for concrete and masonry construction. Table 1 shows the common experimentally derived cover distance requirements for reinforced concrete oor

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Fig. 2. ACI 216.1-97/TMS-0216-97 Standard on Fire Resistance of Concrete and Masonry Construction American Concrete Institute and The Masonry Society 1997, used with permission

and roof slabs, while Fig. 3 illustrates some of the many temperature proles for sizes and type of concrete during standard E 119 re exposures of up to a four-hour duration. Concrete and masonry walls are noncombustible and typically quite massive heavy. Minimum wall thickness, height limits, and cover distances to any steel reinforcing are provided by industry design standards for both ordinary and re resistive deTable 1. Concrete Cover Requirements from ACI 216.1-97/TMS 0216-97 American Concrete Institute and the Masonry Society 1997, Used with Permission CoverA,B for corresponding re resistance in. Restrained Aggregate type Siliceous Carbonate Semi-lightweight Lightweight Siliceous Carbonate Semilightweight Lightweight 4 or less 3/4 3/4 3/4 3/4 3/4 3/4 3/4 3/4 1h 3/4 3/4 3/4 3/4 1 1/2 h Unrestrained 2h 3h 11/4 11/4 11/4 11/4 23/8 21/8 2 2 4h 15/8 11/4 11/4 11/4 23/4 21/4 21/4 21/4

Nonprestressed 3/4 1 3/4 3/4 3/4 3/4 3/4 3/4 Prestressed 11/8 11/2 13/4 1 13/8 15/8 1 13/8 11/2 1 13/8 11/2

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In general, the graphs, charts, and equations of ACI 216.1-97/ TMS 0216-97 and ASCE/SFPE 29-99 provide very convenient design aids for a quick determination of re resistance times for a variety of generic concrete and masonry construction by simple superposition, factoring, interpolation, and combinations of the given self-contained values and criteria. Similar re protection design aids are also available in Chapter 9 of the PCI Design handbook for precast and prestressed concrete. As with other construction materials, the various types of concrete structures can also be analytically assessed for re resistance through utilization of heat transfer and structural response models. These analyses can be simplied, or can be more elaborate, as needed and warranted for the problem under consideration. Thermal analyses will provide the temperature distributions in the concrete members. These analytical results can be compared to critical E 119 temperature limits, or used to determine the temperature dependent mechanical properties and their effects on the structural resistance of the member or subassembly during a re event. Both simple and continuous oor beams and slabs, columns, and walls of reinforced concrete may be evaluated, as necessary, using these rational methods. Wood Timber construction may be of two distinct categories: heavy and light. Heavy timber uses glue-laminated timber or largedimension sawn timber for the principal structural beams, columns, decks, or trusses, whereas light timber consists of the smaller sizes of sawn or engineered wood framing, such as wall studs and oor joists. Wood is primarily used in residential and low-rise building construction. It is a combustible and orthotropic material, which has different properties in its transverse and longitudinal directions dependent on the wood species and its grain orientations. Strength along the wood grain is much higher than perpendicular to it, the maximum strength is usually different for compression and tension, and the properties vary with the different species and grades of wood products. In addition, it is well established that wood strength declines with time under long duration loads. Moisture content, rate of charring, and the grain orientation are the principal parameters that affect woods high temperature properties. Due to the presence of interior moisture, there is not much change in wood properties up to 100C. Effectively, at and above material temperatures of 300C, the strength and stiffness of wood can be considered to be essentially depleted as it becomes char. Degradation of wood properties begins above 100C, with signicant changes occurring between 200300C. As wood burns, the wood surface ignites and forms a layer of char that effectively insulates the solid and combustible interior wood. This char layer thickness results in a reduction of the effective wood cross section available for structural load resistance. Elementary computations of the wood section char losses section size reductions from D to d and B to b approximate the remaining effective properties of the wood member to be used for determination of its residual load-carrying resistance on the basis of ambient structural mechanics principles. Figure 4 The rate of charring is affected by woods density and moisture content, Various design recommendations for charring rate during a standard re resistance test may be found in the building codes of the United States, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia Buchanan 2001. A general effective design value for char rate of thicker lumber minimum 1 1/2 in. in wood thickness in direction of each ex-

Fig. 3. Representative temperatures in NWC provided in ACI 216. 1-97/TMS 0216-97 American Concrete Institute and the Masonry Society 1997, used with permission

signs, with the latter predicated almost exclusively on ASTM E 119 heat transfer and temperature limits. Table 2 shows the minimum equivalent thickness for re resistance of single layer concrete walls, oors, and roofs, as given in both ACI 216.1-97/TMS 0216-97 and ASCE/SFPE 29-99. Similar prescriptive criteria exist in international sources. For re resistance of clay or concrete masonry walls, the prescriptive minimum wall thicknesses in ACI 216.1-97/TMS 0216-97 again range only from about 37 inches, depending on the specic material type. In general, the minimum design thickness specied for masonry bearing walls more than one story high is 8 inches, while that for one story buildings is 6 inches. Thus, the re resistance of a concrete or masonry wall that is properly designed to the minimum structural criteria is often adequate without any additional re protection cover.

Table 2. Concrete Wall Thickness for Fire Resistance ACI 216.1-97/ TMS 0216-97 and ASCE 29-99 Minimum wall thickness for re resistance rating in. Aggregate type Siliceous Carbonate Semilightweight Lightweight 1h 3.5 3.2 2.7 2.5 1 1/2 h 4.3 4.0 3.3 3.1 2h 5.0 4.6 3.8 3.6 3h 6.2 5.7 4.6 4.4 4h 7.0 6.6 5.4 5.1

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Fig. 4. Schematic of charring in wood subjected to 3-sided re exposure Structural Design for Fire Safety by Andrew H. Buchanan 2001, Copyright John Wiley & Sons Limited. Reproduced with permission

posed surface when subjected to a standard E 119 re is 1.8 in./ h, developed from a nominal char rate of approximately 1.5 in./ h. This char rate, along with given wood strength adjustment factors, are the main ingredients that can be used for re resistance design maximum of two hours of exposed heavier wood-timber members based on the newer mechanics-based procedure promulgated by NDS-2001 AWC/AF&PA Technical Report 10. Alternatively, the long-standing semi-empirical methods based on ASTM E 119 re test data are available to compute re resistance rating periods up to one hour. ASCE 29-99 These take the form of either straightforward correlation equations for unprotected wood beams or columns, or by the component addition method for protected wood construction. The latter simply combines the key assembly elements and their assigned characteristic resistance time into a total re resistance time. Fig. 5 shows the characteristic re resistance times for various protective membranes and wood-frame elements ASCE/SFPE 29-99. Connections for wood members are made with either mechanical fasteners or adhesives. These timber connections can behave differently under re exposures, depending on the type of member and connection, the applied structural loading, and whether used in exposed or protected construction. Metal fasteners nails, screws, and bolts perform well at elevated temperature exposures if they are adequately protected from the re either by shielding within the wood itself, or by application of additional re protection materials to the connection. Timber members with adhesively bonded joints generally behave the same as the wood member itself.

Fig. 5. Component addition times from ASCE/SFPE 29-99 ASCE 1999

Conclusions
There is a variety of re resistance ratings, simple design criteria and aids that can be used for the re resistance assessment of all the common construction materials. The UL Fire Resistance Directory contains the listings for most of the E 119 re-tested assemblies. Many of the related design criteria are published in ASCE/SFPE 29-99, with similar and supplementary information provided in several prominent design standards or guides of the different material industries. The express limitations of most of these are that they are directly based upon the standard ASTM E 119 re exposure and its acceptance criteria for undamaged new

construction. These simple calculation methods and design aids were developed for single members or isolated subassemblies in a re compartment subjected to a standard E 119 re with idealized boundary conditions i.e., without overall structural system interactions, and are not intended to be a predictor of structural failure in buildings for actual loads or res i.e., they are based on E 119 critical temperatures or its standard test performance under maximum design load. The identication of specic ultimate structural failure modes or their potential progression to collapse mechanisms cannot be obtained from these formulations. However, these methods enable an efcient and generally conservative way to expand the re resistance ratings for members and assemblies that do not directly match published tests. In this manner, the prescriptive code requirements can be conveniently and safely met. The assumptions, limitations and constraints of the prescriptive re resistance methods based on E 119 ratings can be superseded by a more advanced performance-based re engineering design intended to achieve a more accurate, and/or innovative, solution to overall structural re safety. Typically, these methods invoke additional structural mechanics and/or thermodynamic principles, more detailed analytical models, and more extensive computations. Exposed unprotected members or assemblies, unique re exposure conditions, new materials or designs, and existing or damaged construction may all exceed the typical scope of the prescriptive code criteria. For these and similar cases, the alternate means and methods provision can enable use of a performance-based re design. A higher level of complexity will be encountered when a framing subassemblage, or the entire building frame, is to be directly analyzed for its structural response with applied loading effects under re. Natural, or real, re scenarios can be stipulated and analyzed for the elevated temperatures developed in structural members Buchanan 2001; Eu-

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rocode 5 1993; SFPE Handbook 2002. Analytical models with general, or special purpose, computer software can be used as a simulation tool to determine if structural failures during the design re are likely to occur. Usually, a special engineering consultant will be needed to perform and document such advanced re eng ineering designs for the acceptance of the code authority having jurisdiction. A range of structural re engineering alternatives, from the elementary and straightforward through more sophisticated solutions, exist for all the common building materials to match the needs of different projects in new or existing construction.
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References
American Concrete Institute ACI and The Masonry Society TMS. 1997. Standard method for determining re resistance of concrete and masonry construction assemblies. ACI 216.1-97/TMS 0216-97, ACI, Farmington Hills, Mich., and TMS, Boulder, Colo.

American National Standards Institute ANSI, American Forest and Paper Association AF&PA, and American Wood Council AWC. 2001. National design specication for wood construction. ANSI/ AF&PA NDS-2001. ASTM. Standard test method for re tests of building construction and materials. ASTM E 119, West Conshohocken, Pa. American Wood Council AWC American Forest and Product Association AF&PA. 2003. Calculating the re resistance of exposed wood members. AWC/AF&PA Technical Rep. 10. Buchanan, A. H. 2001. Structural design for re safety, Wiley. European Committee for Standardization CEN. 1993. Structural re design. Part 1.2, Eurocode 5, Brussels. Society of Fire Protection Engineers SFPE. 2002. SFPE handbook of re protection engineering. 3rd Ed., Bethesda, Md. Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE. 1999. Standard calculation methods for structural re protection. ASCE/SFPE 29-99, Reston, Va. Underwriters Laboratories Inc. UL. 2006. Fire resistance directory, Vol. 1, Northbrook, Ill.

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