Steel framed structures subjected to the combined effects of blast and fire - Part 1: State-of-the-art review

Abstract

Design of public infrastructure against terrorism has become a rising concern with the objective of reducing the level of damage to property and the loss of life. Some of the terrorism acts take the form of blast followed by fire causing catastrophic failure of the structure. This paper studies the response of steel framed structures subjected to the combined effects of blast and fire. A state-of-the-art summary on issues related to separate assessment of blast and fire resistance of multistory building frames is provided. This is followed by a systematic investigation on the combined effects of blast and fire using a proposed two-step dynamic analysis procedure. In Part 2 of a companion paper, a typical multi-storey building will be analyzed to study its behavior under a medium-scale explosion which triggers a post-blast fire in the affected compartment. This particular structure is found to be vulnerable as it possesses little fire resistance due to the high level of deformation caused by the blast load. The aim of this two-part paper is to advance the use of simulation tools for collapse analysis of three dimensional steel structures subject to attack by fire and explosion so that the complex interaction effects of blast and fire can be understood and quantified.