Predicting the fire performance of structural timber floors

This paper describes the research effortsbeing conducted to sequentially model timbercomposite floors under fire exposure. Appropriatethermal properties were defined for the timber,verified against experimental results, allowing3D thermal modelling to be conducted andtemperature profiles of timber cross sections tobe determined, as described in previous work.Sequential thermo-stress analyses have beenconducted for timber composite floors in twomajor configurations; joist and box beam floors.These were compared to the experimental dataobtained from furnace tests.It was found that the structural model developedpredicted the displacement response of theexperimental floors well, but was unconservativewhen predicting failure times. Modifications tothe material model within the structural inputssuch as the maximum reduction in mechanicaltension strength at elevated temperatures werefound to have a significant influence on themodelling response.