Fire under Concrete Slab

Outline

1 Description
1.1 Temperature Curves
1.2 Material Properties
2 Finite Element Model
2.1 Geometry
2.2 Properties
2.3 Boundary Conditions
2.3.1 Thermal Boundary Conditions
2.3.2 Static Boundary Conditions
2.4 Initial Temperatures
2.5 Loads
2.6 Mesh
3 Transient Heat Flow Analysis
3.1 Commands
3.2 Results
4 Structural Nonlinear Analysis
4.1 Commands
4.2 Results
4.2.1 Stresses in the Concrete Slab
4.2.2 Stresses in the Reinforcement Grid
4.2.3 Distributed Bending Moments in the Composed Surface
Appendix A Additional Information

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1 Description
This example shows how to perform a staggered heat flow-stress analysis on a quarter symmetric model of a reinforced concrete slab as presented in Figure 1.
The effect of the fire is simulated by a temperature applied at the bottom and lateral faces. Material properties will be introduced with temperature dependencies on elastic parameters.

Figure 1: Geometry of the slab (dimensions in mm)

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1.1 Temperature Curves

The temperature boundary conditions with time that are applied for the bottom face and for the lateral faces of the model of the slab are presented in Figure 2 and Figure 3, respectively.
The development of ambient temperature with time is presented in Figure 4.

Figure 2: Temperature vs. time - bottom face Figure 3: Temperature vs. time - lateral faces Figure 4: Ambient temperature vs. time

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1.2 Material Properties

The material properties for concrete and for reinforcement steel are presented in Table 1.
The variation of Young’s modulus with the temperature for concrete and steel are presented in Figure 5 and Figure 6, respectively.

Concrete
Young’s modulus E 42000 N/m2
Poisson’s ratio ν 0.18
Thermal expansion coefficient α 1E-5
Thermal conductivity 1.32 W/m ·◦ C
Thermal capacity 2.3E+6 J/m3 ·◦ C

Reinforcement (Steel)
Elastic modulus E 200000 N/m2
Poisson’s ratio ν 0.33
Equivalent thickness
(both directions) teq 0.48 mm

Table 1: Material properties Figure 5: Young’s modulus of concrete vs. temperature Figure 6: Young’s modulus of steel vs. steel

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2 Finite Element Model
For the modelling session we start a new project.
DianaIE

Main menu File New [Fig. 7]

Figure 7: New project dialog

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We define the units to be used in the model. We choose the following units [Fig. 9]: newton for force, millimeter for length, second for time and celsius for temperature.

DianaIE

Geometry browser Reference system Units [Fig. 8]

Property Panel [Fig. 9]

Figure 8: Geometry browser Figure 9: Property panel - units

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2.1 Geometry
We create the bottom layer of the slab [Fig. 12] that we then extrude [Fig. 11] to obtain the final geometry.
DianaIE

Main menu Geometry Create Add polygon sheet [Fig. 10] [Fig. 12]
Main menu Viewer Fit all

Main menu Geometry Modify Extrude [Fig. 11] [Fig. 13]

Figure 12: Bottom layer of the slab

Figure 10: Add sheet Figure 11: Extrude shape Figure 13: Extruded geometry of the slab

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We create the grid reinforcement [Fig. 14]. For that we extract the bottom face of the slab and move it 15 mm inside the slab to the position of the reinforcement.

DianaIE

Main menu Viewer Face selection [Fig. 14]

< Select the bottom face of the slab >

Main menu Geometry Modify Extract [Fig. 15]

Main menu Geometry Modify Move shape [Fig. 16]

Figure 14: Bottom view of the slab Figure 15: Geometry browser Figure 16: Move shape

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We create the composed surface [Fig. 19]. For that we duplicate the sheet created for the reinforcement and move it 60 mm to be in the center of the slab.

DianaIE

Main menu Geometry Shapes Sheet 1 Duplicate [Fig. 17]

Main menu Geometry Modify Move shape [Fig. 18]

Figure 19: Geometry of the slab including composed

Figure 17: Geometry browser Figure 18: Move shape surface and reinforcement grid

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We create a line to use later for definition of the supports to fix the translations in the Z direction. So we add a line beneath the slab and project it on the bottom surface of the slab.
DianaIE

Main menu Geometry Create Add line [Fig. 20]

Main menu Geometry Modify Shape projection [Fig. 21]

Figure 22: Target selection

Figure 20: Add line Figure 21: Shape projection Figure 23: Tool selection

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2.2 Properties
We assign the properties to the slab [Fig. 24]. We use structural solid elements and we add a linear elastic isotropic material for concrete including thermal effects and heat flow. The parameters
are described in Section 1.2.
DianaIE

Main menu Geometry Assign Properties [Fig. 24]

Properties Material Add material [Fig. 25] Edit material [Fig. 26] [Fig. 28]
< Edit the Temperature-Young’s modulus >

Figure 24: Assign properties to slab Figure 25: Add new material

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We input the linear elastic properties, including the variation of the Young’s modulus with temperature.

Figure 26: Linear material properties Figure 27: Temperature-Young’s modulus variation

Note: You can copy and paste the variation of Young modulus with respect to time from a Excel sheet

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We input the heat flow properties: thermal conductivity is 1.32 Tmm/s3 .řC = 1.32 W/m.řC, thermal capacity is 2.3 T/mm2 řC = 2300000 J/m3 .řC.

Figure 28: Heat flow properties

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We assign the properties to the grid reinforcement with the parameters described in Section 1.2 including the variation of the Young’s modulus with temperature [Fig. 32].

DianaIE

Main menu Geometry Assign Reinforcement properties [Fig. 29]

Reinforcement properties Material Add material [Fig. 30] Edit material [Fig. 31] [Fig. 32]
< Edit the Temperature-Young’s modulus >

Figure 29: Assign properties to reinforcement Figure 30: Add new material

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 Figure 31: Linear elastic properties Figure 32: Temperature - Young’s modulus variation

Note: You can copy and paste the variation of Young modulus with respect to time from an Excel sheet

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We also assign the geometry properties to the reinforcement grid, we use direct input in which we define the equivalent thickness of the grid in both local directions.

DianaIE

Reinforcement properties Geometry Edit geometry [Fig. 33]

Figure 33: Edit geometry

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We continue by defining the material and geometry properties of the composed surface. We use this composed surface for output purposes, so we can have the distributed moments and shear forces in the slab.

DianaIE

Main menu Geometry Assign Properties [Fig. 34]

Properties Material Add material [Fig. 35] Edit material [Fig. 36]
Properties Geometry Add new geometry [Fig. 37]

Figure 35: Add new material

Figure 34: Assign composed surface properties Figure 36: Edit material Figure 37: Add new geometry
Note that we do not need to fill the mechanical properties for the composed surface if we are not doing a design analysis.

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2.3 Boundary Conditions
2.3.1 Thermal Boundary Conditions
We define the external temperature at the bottom face of the slab as function of time. We set the external temperature as 1řC and we will later define the temperature curves.

DianaIE

Main menu Geometry Assign Thermal conditions [Fig. 38]

Main menu Geometry Assign Connection properties [Fig. 39] [Fig. 40]

Figure 39: Assign boundary interface at the bottom face of the

Figure 38: Thermal boundary conditions slab Figure 40: Boundary interface at the bottom face of the slab

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We create a new material – Boundary – and introduce the heat flow properties .

DianaIE

Connection properties Material Add material [Fig. 41] Edit material [Fig. 42]

Figure 41: Add new material Figure 42: Material properties

We repeat the same operations to attach the thermal boundary conditions to the side and the top faces of the slab –”External Temperature Lateral” and ”External Temperature Top” – respectively. The properties are the
same. We need to define three different boundary conditions because we will have three correspondent temperature curves.

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Time dependencies of thermal boundaries. We define the functions for temperature versus time for the bottom, lateral and top faces of the slab and assign them to the thermal boundaries created previously
[Fig. 43].
We start by the temperature function for the bottom face.

DianaIE

Geometry browser Boundary conditions External Temperature Bottom Edit time dependency [Fig. 43] [Fig. 44]

Figure 43: Geometry browser - thermal

boundary conditions Figure 44: Edit time dependent factors - bottom face

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We repeat the process to define the time dependencies of the thermal boundary conditions on the side [Fig. 45] and the top of the slab [Fig. 46].

DianaIE

Geometry browser Boundary conditions External Temperature Lateral Edit time dependency [Fig. 45]
Geometry browser Boundary conditions External Temperature Top Edit time dependency [Fig. 46]

Figure 45: Edit time dependent factors - lateral face Figure 46: Edit time dependent factors - top face

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2.3.2 Static Boundary Conditions
We attach the supports to the slab. We first fix the translations in the X and Y directions in the lateral faces to make the symmetry conditions.

DianaIE

Main menu Geometry Assign Supports [Fig. 47] [Fig. 48]

< Repeat for Support BCy > [Fig. 49] [Fig. 50]

Figure 48: Supported face BCx

Figure 47: Symmetry supports - fix X translations Figure 49: Supported face BCy Figure 50: Symmetry supports - fix Y translations

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We fix the translations in the Z direction along the line.

DianaIE

Main menu Geometry Assign Supports [Fig. 51] [Fig. 52]

Figure 51: Bottom supports - fix Z translations Figure 52: Supported edge

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2.4 Initial Temperatures

We attach an initial field to define the initial temperature (20 °C) of the solid slab.

DianaIE

Main menu Geometry Assign Initial fields [Fig. 53] [Fig. 55]

Figure 53: Attach initial field Figure 54: Slab Figure 55: Geometry browser

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2.5 Loads

We add the effect of the self-weight as a global load.

DianaIE

Main menu Geometry Assign Global loads [Fig. 56]

Figure 56: Self-weight

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2.6 Mesh

We define the properties of the mesh. First we set an element size of 200 mm for all the slab with preferable Hexagonal/Quadrilateral elements [Fig. 57]. As we want 6 elements in the thickness of the slab we select one lateral
edge and set the divisions to 6 [Fig. 58]. Finally we mesh the composed surface ”Sheet 2” with an element size of 150 mm [Fig. 59].

DianaIE

Main menu Geometry Assign Mesh properties [Fig. 57] - [Fig. 59]
< Repeat this action 3× >

Figure 57: Mesh properties for Slab Figure 58: Mesh properties for slab’s edge Figure 59: Mesh properties for Sheet 2

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And we generate the mesh [Fig. 61].

DianaIE

Main menu Viewer Viewpoints Isometric view 1

Main menu Geometry Generate mesh [Fig. 61]

Figure 60: Geometry of the slab Figure 61: View of the mesh

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3 Transient Heat Flow Analysis
3.1 Commands
We first perform a transient heat flow analysis. For that we add a new analysis for transient heat transfer and we specify the initial temperature field as the initial conditions to be considered in the analysis.

DianaIE

Main menu Analysis Add analysis

Analysis browser Analysis1 Rename Heatflow-stress [Fig. 62]

Analysis browser Heatflow-stress Add command Transient heat transfer [Fig. 64]

Analysis browser Heatflow-stress Transient heat transfer Initial conditions Edit properties [Fig. 64] [Fig. 65]

Figure 62: Analysis browser Figure 63: Choose analysis type Figure 64: Add heat flow analysis Figure 65: Initial conditions

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We input the time step size as: 60(10) 300(8) 3000(4) seconds [Fig. 66]. This means that there are 10 steps of 60 seconds followed by 8 steps of 300 seconds followed by 4 steps of 3000 seconds. We chose to output the
temperatures [Fig. 67] [Fig. 68] and finally we run the analysis.

DianaIE

Analysis browser Heatflow-stress Transient heat transfer Execute Analysis Edit properties [Fig. 64] [Fig. 66]
Analysis browser Heatflow-stress Transient heat transfer Analysis Output Edit properties [Fig. 64] [Fig. 67]
Properties - OUTPUT Result User selection Modify [Fig. 67] [Fig. 68]

Main menu Analysis Run selected analysis

Figure 66: Execute properties Figure 67: Output properties Figure 68: Result selection

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3.2 Results

We display a contour plot of the temperature distribution at t=250 minutes (=15000 seconds).

DianaIE

Results browser Heatflow-stress Analysis Output Nodal results Temperatures PTE [Fig. 69] [Fig. 70]
Results browser Case Time-step 22,... [Fig. 69]

Main menu Viewer Viewpoints Right view [Fig. 71]

Figure 69: Results browser Figure 70: Temperatures PTE Figure 71: Temperatures PTE

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We make a graph of the temperature distribution over the thickness of the slab. For that we define a probe curve through the thickness of the model Z = [0, 150] mm at location X = 1225 mm, Y = 380 mm [Fig. 72]. We
can study how the temperature varies in time other the thickness: select the result cases: ”Time Step 10(600)”, ”Time Step 18(3000)” and ”Time Step 22(15000)”. At each time step show the resulting contour probe [Fig. 69]
[Fig. 73].

DianaIE

Property Panel Result Probing curve setting [Fig. 72] [Fig. 73]
Results browser Case Time-step 22,... [Fig. 69]
Results browser Heatflow-stress Analysis Output Nodal results Temperatures PTE Show contour probe [Fig. 73]

Figure 72: Probe curve settings Figure 73: Probe curve

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We can copy the results to an Excel WorkSheet and sort the results in Z direction [Fig. 74].

160

140

120

Distance from bottom (mm)

100 250 minutes
50 minutes
80
10 minutes
60

40

20

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
Temperature (◦C)

Figure 74: Temperature distribution over thickness

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4 Structural Nonlinear Analysis
4.1 Commands
We now continue the analysis by performing a structural nonlinear computation that accounts for the temperature effects determined previously in the heat transfer analysis. For that we add a new execute block in the
Heatflow-stress analysis for structural nonlinear. We add a second execute block to apply the time steps. Select the first execute block to apply the self-weight (SW) load in one step [Fig. 76] [Fig. 77].

DianaIE

Analysis browser Heatflow-stress Add command Structural nonlinear [Fig. 75]

Analysis browser Heatflow-stress Structural nonlinear Add... Execute steps - Time steps [Fig. 76]
Analysis browser Heatflow-stress Structural nonlinear new execute block Load steps Edit properties [Fig. 75] [Fig. 77]

Figure 75: Analysis browser Figure 76: Analysis browser Figure 77: Load steps

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In the second execute block, we define the time steps in the same manner we did for the transient heat transfer analysis: 60(10) 300(8) 3000(4) [Fig. 76] [Fig. 78].
We select displacements and stresses for output results [Fig. 79] [Fig. 80] and we run the analysis.

DianaIE

Analysis browser Heatflow-stress Structural nonlinear Add... Execute steps - Time steps [Fig. 76]
Analysis browser Heatflow-stress Structural nonlinear new execute block 2 Start steps Edit properties [Fig. 76] [Fig. 78]
Analysis browser Heatflow-stress Structural nonlinear Output Edit properties [Fig. 79]
Main menu Analysis Run selected analysis

Figure 78: Time steps Figure 79: Output properties Figure 80: Results selection

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4.2 Results
4.2.1 Stresses in the Concrete Slab
We display a contour plot of the maximum principal stress S1 in the concrete slab at t=250 minutes (=15000 seconds).

DianaIE

Results browser Heatflow-stress Output Element results Cauchy Total Stresses S1 [Fig. 81] [Fig. 82]
Results browser Case Time-step 23,... [Fig. 81] [Fig. 82]
Main menu Viewer Viewpoints Front view [Fig. 83]

Figure 81: Results browser Figure 82: Cauchy Total Stresses S1 Figure 83: Cauchy Total Stresses S1

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We also make a graph for the distribution of maximum principal stress over the thickness of the slab. For that we define a probe-curve through the model at X=200 mm, Y =380 mm [Fig. 84]. We can study how the stresses
vary in time: select the result cases ”Time Step 11(600)”, ”Time Step 19(3000)” and ”Time Step 23(15000)” . At each time step show the resulting contour probe [Fig. 85].

DianaIE

Property Panel Result Probing curve setting [Fig. 84]

Results browser Case Time-step 23,... [Fig. 85]
Results browser Heatflow-stress Output Element results Cauchy Total Stresses S1 Show contour probe [Fig. 85]

Figure 84: Probe curve settings Figure 85: Probe curve

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We copy the results to an Excel WorkSheet and sort the results in Z direction so we can compare the results.

160

140

120

Distance from bottom (mm)

100 250 minutes
50 minutes
80
10 minutes
60

40

20

0
-10 0 10 20 30 40
Maximum principal stress S1 (N/mm2)

Figure 86: Maximum principal stress distribution over thickness

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4.2.2 Stresses in the Reinforcement Grid
We observe the stresses in the reinforcement grid. From the mesh browser we show only the ”Sheet 1” that corresponds to the reinforcement grid [Fig. 87]1 .

DianaIE

Mesh browser Element sets Boundary Bottom Hide [Fig. 87]

< Hide all Element sets, Reinforcement sets, and the shapes Sheet 2 and Slab >

Figure 87: Mesh browser Figure 88: Results browser

1
The created reinforcement set represents the reinforcement grid in the composed surface elements. This is only required for a design analysis. Because this reinforcement set is on the same location as the general grid,
we hide the reinforcement set in this analysis to plot results on the general reinforcement grid.

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We show the stresses SXX and SYY for the last time step.

DianaIE

Results browser Case Time-step 23,... [Fig. 88]

Results browser Heatflow-stress Output Reinforcements results Reinforcement Cauchy Total Stresses SXX [Fig. 88] [Fig. 89]
Results browser Heatflow-stress Output Reinforcements results Reinforcement Cauchy Total Stresses SYY [Fig. 88] [Fig. 90]

Figure 89: Reinforcement Cauchy Total Stresses SXX Figure 90: Reinforcement Cauchy Total Stresses SYY

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4.2.3 Distributed Bending Moments in the Composed Surface

In the mesh browser we show only the ”Sheet 2” shape that corresponds to the composed surface [Fig. 91].

DianaIE

Mesh browser Mesh Shapes Sheet 2 Show only [Fig. 91]

Results browser Case Time-step 23,... [Fig. 92]

Figure 91: Mesh browser Figure 92: Results browser

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We show the distributed moments Mxx and Myy in the slab.

DianaIE

Results browser Heatflow-stress Output Element results Distributed Moments Mxx [Fig. 92] [Fig. 93]
Results browser Heatflow-stress Output Element results Distributed Moments Myy [Fig. 92] [Fig. 94]

Figure 93: Distributed Moments Mxx Figure 94: Distributed Moments Myy

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Appendix A Additional Information

Folder: Tutorials/SlabUnderFire

Number of elements ≈ 700

Keywords:
analys: flow flowst heat nonlin physic stagge transi.
constr: initia suppor temper.
elemen: bq4ht chx60 compos cq8cm flow grid hx8ht potent reinfo solid taper.
load: elemen temper time weight.
materi: conduc elasti isotro temper.
option: direct newton regula units.
post: binary ndiana.
pre: dianai.
result: cauchy displa force moment princi stress temper total.

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DIANA FEA BV does not accept any responsibility regarding the presented cases, used parameters, and presented results.