Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

After a building catches a fire, the fire temperature and the combustion time affect directly the capacities of building structures (reinforced concrete structures, brick block structures, steel structures, wood structures and so on). It's extremely important to judge the fire temperatures correctly during estimating the damage degree of the building. Because the happening of fire is unexpected, it is impossible to test its real developing process. Generally the temperatures of fire can only be judged according to the performance changes of the building elements and materials, the damage characteristics of the articles on the fire sites, and also the fire remains, etc. The fire temperatures of building structures refer to the temperatures directly on the surfaces of the building elements. There is difference of damage degrees even on the same building element, this is affected by the different temperatures on different parts of the building element surfaces and the fire temperatures are directly related to the kinds and amount of the combustible articles and the fire spread. Therefore, the fire temperature zones must be determined in the light of the amount and kinds of the combustible articles, combined with the fire damage degrees of building structures and elements during judging the fire temperatures on the fire sites. In the recent four years, we have done the experimental research of the performance changes of building structures after fire, and conducted the pilot projects of damage degree estimation of structures. In the pilot projects, we have done research on judging methods of fire temperature and their processes.