Fire performance and design of CFRP retrofitted and insulated cold-formed steel tubular columns

Overview

Carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CFRP) are rapidly gaining acceptance as potential materials for repairing and retrofitting cold-formed steel tubular columns that have deteriorated due to structural ageing, corrosion, increased loads and disaster exposures. However, CFRP’s sensitivity to high temperature exposures compared to other conventional retrofitting materials and concerns relating to CFRP’s fire performance have limited CFRP applications in steel columns. Therefore this project aims to enhance the knowledge and understanding of the fire performance of CFRP retrofitted cold-formed steel tubular columns, and to achieve higher fire rating by means of an insulation system.

Research Activities

Comprehensive knowledge on mechanical and thermal behaviour of cold-formed steel tubular members, CFRP composites and insulation materials will be gained by conducting mechanical and thermal property tests at elevated temperatures.

Full-scale experiments will be carried to investigate the fire performance of CFRP strengthened cold-formed steel tubular columns with and without an insulation system. In addition, these experimental results will be used to validate suitable numerical models and a detailed numerical parametric study will be undertaken.

Expected Findings

This research will provide fire safety design rules and guidelines for CFRP retrofitted cold-formed steel tubular columns for use by structural and fire engineers.