Research focuses on developing a comprehensive approach to structural fire safety that will enable the development of performance-based design tools for steel and reinforced concrete structural systems exposed to fire. The proposed approach will consider fire as a design condition in the building design process, leading to risk-consistent, cost-effective designs. The project makes use of experimental data on the performance of structural members and systems developed in the National Fire Research Laboratory (NFRL); a unique facility that enables scientists and engineers to conduct research on the response of real-scale structures to realistic fire and mechanical loading under controlled laboratory conditions. Opportunities exist for (1) the development and validation of computational thermal and structural models that are highly nonlinear due to the concurrent effects of temperature-dependent reduction of material strength and stiffness and thermally-induced load effects, (2) characterization of temperature-dependent material and connector behavior including bolts and welds and the development of simple yet accurate modeling approaches for components and connections, and (3) quantification of modeling uncertainty, including propagation of uncertainties from fire simulation to thermal analysis to structural analysis.

References:

Jiang, J., Main, J., Weigand, J., and Sadek, F., (2020), “Reduced-order modeling of composite floor slabs in fire. I: heat-transfer analysis,” Journal of Structural Engineering, ASCE, Vol. 146(6), June.

 Jiang, J., Main, J., Weigand, J., and Sadek, F., (2020), “Reduced-order modeling of composite floor slabs in fire. II: thermal-structural analysis,” Journal of Structural Engineering, Vol. 146(6), June.

Jiang, J., Pintar, A., Weigand, J., Main, J. A., and Sadek, F., (2019), “Improved calculation method for insulation-based fire resistance of composite slabs.” Fire Safety Journal. Vol. 105, pp. 144-153, doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2019.02.013.

key words

Computational modeling; Connections; Finite element methods; fire, Reinforced concrete; Steel; Structural analysis; thermal analysis

Citizenship:  Open to U.S. citizens

Level:  Open to Postdoctoral applicants