Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

A comparison program has been established concerning the simulation of the static behavior of steel columns submitted to fire [I]. The stress strain relationships in steel are those recommended in EC3, part 10 [2]. The five numerical codes used in this comparison are briefly described, namely CEFICOSS, DIANA, LENAS, SAFIR and SISMEF. A description of 8 tests is given: Lee's frame at ambient and at elevated temperatures, an eccentrically loaded column at ambient temperature, at uniform elevated temperature and under IS0 heating and finally an axially loaded column in the same three cases (ambient, uniform and ISO). The evolution of the horizontal displacement is graphically given for each test, as well as a table summarizing the results in term of ultimate resistance. The five programs compare reasonably well when the final resistances are considered, which would be the case in a situation of design for a real structure. In all the tests, the maximum difference between two different programs is 6%. Differences may occur in the evolution of displacements, mainly due to the way that the residual stresses are considered, or to the fact that the non uniform temperature distribution has sometimes been replaced by a uniform temperature equal to the average value of the non uniform distribution.