RELIABILITY ANAYLISIS OF GLULAM LOAD BEARING
BEAMS EXPOSED TO REAL FIRE
Vlatka Rajčić1, Mislav Stepinac2, Boris Androić3, Dean Čizmar4
1 INTRODUCTION 123
Until recently, the fire resistance of buildings was based
on the ISO standard curve. The only option for
determining the fire resistance was to carryout tests in
laboratories. ISO Standard curve used by the current
norm is too simple, unrealistic and lead to uneconomic
situations with no guarantee of security proportional to
the invested money.
2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND
APPROACH TO THE DESIGN OF
FIRE
Due to the determination of design fire load density, q f,d ,
there are two different approaches: LEVEL 1 –
probabilistic approach and LEVEL 2 – semiprobabilistic
approach. Level 2 of determination of fire load
calculation is suitable for the practice and provides a
solution that is on the side of higher reliability. Access to
level 2 of determination of fire load calculation was
adopted in EN 1991-1-2 (Annex E).
3 FIRE FROM THE ASPECT OF THE
RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT
Reliability is defined as the ability of a structure or a
structural element to fulfill certain requirements,
including the estimated lifespan; it is expressed through
probabilistic expressions, and includes safety,
serviceability and durability. The fire load can be
considered as action. However, this action is accidental,
so the target value probability, p t , must be less than or
equal to the product (of multiplication) of the targeted
failure value in case of fire, p fi , and the probability of
occurrence of fire, p t,fi :
1
Vlatka Rajčić, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of
Zagreb, Kačićeva 26, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatia, Email:
vrajcic@grad.hr
2
Mislav Stepinac, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of
Zagreb, Kačićeva 26, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatia, Email:
mstepinac@grad.hr
3
Boris Androić, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of
Zagreb, Kačićeva 26, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatia, Email:
androic@grad.hr
4
Dean Čizmar, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of
Zagreb, Kačićeva 26, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatia, Email:
dcizmar@grad.hr
p f , fi ⋅ p fi ≤ pt (1)
Equation (1) can be written as follows:
pt
p f , fi ⋅ ≤ (2)
p fi
In that case, reliability index β is no longer the fixed
value 3.8, but depends on different factors of probability
of fire and is indicated with β fi =f(p t,fi ).
4 FIRE IN TIMBER STRUCTURES
Unlike the fire design of the steel, concrete or composite
structures, methods of design of fire in timber structures
have been greatly simplified. Generally, it is not
necessary to check the reduction of strength in the
residual section, because each increase of temperature is
consider small and is ignored. Method of design
according to EN 1995-1-2 is a two stage process. First,
the calculation of charring depth, and then determine the
strength of the residual section. There are two methods
of design, one under the standard fire, and the other to a
real fire, or parametric. Unlike the standard fire where
the charring rate is constant, in real fires, characteristics
of the room in which is an element (surface openings,
floors, walls, partitions), fire load density, and physical
characteristics of the wood element are taken into
account for the charring rate.
Figure 1: Comparison of changes in resistance at
different approaches of fire design (cross-section
200×1000mm, wood class GL24k
5 CALCULATION OF RELIABILITY OF
GLULAM BEAM EXPOSED TO REAL
FIRE
5.1 STATIC SYSTEMS AND DESIGN
The static system is a simply supported beam. The
laminated beam is a part of the roof frame system, and it
is affected by dead load and snow. The beam was
dimensioned with Eurocode 5 according to the ultimate
limit state for bending affected by the real fire (reduced
strength and stiffness method). The most critical cross
section was analyzed. Using traditional design in
accordance with Eurocode 5, with no fire effect, minimal
heights of cross section (complete capacity) are shown in
table 1.
Table 1: Minimal cross section heights obtained from the
bending capacity without fire
Range
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
[m]
Height
24 30 36 42 48 54 60 66 72
[cm]
Figure 2: Comparison of the necessary cross-section
height for the given beam with fire design and without fire
design (EC5)
5.2 FORMING LIMIT STATE FUNCTION
The reliability analysis is done for a beam with
dimensions b/h = 20/36 cm and a span of 6 meters.
Reliability analysis was made with computer software
VAP. Variant methods were tested (FORM, Monte Carlo
method) which have, due to the simplicity of the specific
problem, resulted in a very similar results. The limit state
function is formed for the maximum bending stress.
Figure 2: Reliability indexes considering different spans
for ultimate limit state prior to fire exposure
Upon defining limit states basic equations were
modelled. Various variations of coefficient of variation
of strength and coefficient of variation for model
uncertainty for designed resistance show us indexes of
reliability and failure probability.
Conclusion is that with effective section method values
of failure probability are greater than in reduced strength
method, minor indexes of reliability are obtained with
effective section method. Also, 17 different beams with
spans between 4 and 12 meters have been analyzed and
17 different limit state equations have been obtained.
Beam width remains constant while the beam height
changes. Accordingly, the values of reduced section
width and height are also changing. The level of
reliability which resulted according to level 2 is minor
than the one which is prescribed by EN 1995 1-2 for
effective section method, while 80% percent of the
samples have sufficient reliability when method of
reduced strength have been obtained.
6 CONCLUSION
Differences between the design procedures in EN 1995-
1-1 and in EN 1995-1-2 were shown. They shown that
the procedure according to EN 1995 1-1 and EN 1995 1-
2 is not enough, and fire as an action must be taken into
account. This leads to the conclusion that when
increasing demands on the structure, level of reliability
of structures designed according to Eurocode 5
significantly changes and for structures bellow the level
RC3 is insufficient. Reliability index in the Eurocode
(reliability class RC2) compared to the reliability
indexes obtained by the methods of reduced strength and
effective section were described. The reduced strength
method gave us a higher value of reliability. The
obtained reliability indexes are satisfactory considering
that the structure is exposed to 30-minute fire and the
full value of the permanent and live load.
REFERENCES
[1] Bjelanović, A.; Rajčić, V.: Drvene konstrukcije
prema Europskim normama. Građevinski fakultet
Sveučilišta u Zagrebu i Hrvatska sveučilišna
naknada, Zagreb, 2007
[2] EN 1990: Eurocode – Basis of structural design.
European Committee for standardization, Brussels,
2001.
[3] Androić, B.; Dujmović, D.; Džeba, I.: Inženjerstvo
pouzdanosti, IA Projektiranje, Zagreb, 2006.
[4] Profil ARBED – Research: Competitive steel
buildings through natural fire safety concept, 1999.
[5] Leonardo Da Vinci Pilot Project: Handbook 5 –
Design of buildings for the fire situations, 2005.
[6] Toratti, T., Schnabl, S., Turk, G.: Reliability
analysis of a glulam beam, Probabilistic Concepts
in the Design of Timber Structures, Structural
safety, pp. 279-293., 2007.
[7] Androić, B., Čizmar, D., Rajčić V.: Analiza
pouzdanosti drvenih lameliranih nosača, Zagreb,
Građevinar 60 (2008) 6, 513-518