Cross-Sectional Stability of Structural Steel at Elevated Temperatures

There is a lack of understanding of how structural systems perform under realistic, uncontrolled fires. Fire protection of steel structures is usually provided through prescriptive requirements. The development of performance-based standards and tools require explicit consideration of fire effects on structural components and systems. This paper presents a parametric study employing nonlinear material and geometric finite element analyses to model the response of wide flange steel column sections to elevated temperatures. The parametric study varied the axial load as well as the cross-sectional slenderness of three lengths of column sections exhibiting nonlinear buckling and elastic buckling, respectively. Computational results illustrate the relationship between column slenderness in the web and/or flanges, and the local and global buckling modes under varying load and temperature conditions.

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