Storey-Based Stability Design for Structural Steel Frameworks Accounting for Variability of Building Fires

建筑物中的火灾可能是灾难性的。最近伦敦格伦费尔大厦（Grenfell Tower）大火和世贸中心（World Trade Center）倒塌等悲剧事件提醒公众，并强化了火灾的灾难性后果。提出的研究解决结构防火安全，这是一个关键的考虑在建筑设计。目前确保钢结构结构防火安全的做法主要依靠规范的方法，即在钢构件表面涂上防火材料，以规范的方式保护结构的完整性，达到规定的防火期限。从历史上看，规范的方法是基于经验和对单个结构元素的火灾测试而制定的，而不是模拟建筑物火灾中的结构性能。然而，近年来，人们对火灾条件下的结构行为有了更深入的了解，计算能力也有了巨大的提高。因此，基于性能的设计（PBD）方法已经出现，其目的是评估整个建筑结构的防火性能，这种方法需要用类似于抗风或地震荷载的结构设计的工程设计方法来证明结构的防火安全性。与风荷载和地震荷载不同，在PBD结构防火设计中需要考虑火灾荷载在位置、震级和分布等方面的不确定性。不幸的是，当前的设计方法无法解决这个问题。***本研究的目的是开发一种先进的PBD方法，用于考虑建筑火灾荷载的可变性/不确定性的钢框架建筑的稳定性分析和设计。这方面的研究严重缺乏。这项研究的重要性在于提高建筑物的消防安全性能，包括改善对灾难性倒塌的保护，以保障公众的安全，以及在建筑物发生火灾时救援人员和消防员的安全。加拿大人和世界其他地方的人们将从更安全的钢结构建筑环境中受益，在其中生活和工作。该研究的新颖之处在于，该方法将能够提供关键信息，不仅涉及建筑火灾中钢结构建筑的稳定性和完整性，而且还涉及建筑火灾中与火灾负荷相关的不确定性和风险，这些不确定性和风险在建筑规范或传统分析和设计方法中都无法获得。这项研究不仅将促进这一领域的知识，而且将在结构消防工程这一新兴领域培养HQP。由于加拿大和世界范围内具有足够技能的工程师很少，因此迫切需要这一学科的工程师。

Fires in buildings can be catastrophic. Tragic events such as the recent Grenfell Tower fire in London and the collapse of the World Trade Center remind the public and reinforce the catastrophic consequences of the fires. The proposed research addresses structural fire safety, which is a key consideration in the design of buildings. The current practice to ensure structural fire safety for steel structures primarily relies on the prescriptive approach in which fire protection materials are applied on surfaces of steel elements to protect structural integrity and achieve a specified fire duration in a prescriptive way. Historically, the prescriptive approach is developed based on the experience and fire tests on individual structural elements, which does not mimic the performance of a structure in building fires. However, greater understanding of structural behaviour under the fire condition and an enormous increase in computing capacity have been achieved in recent years. As a result, a performance-based design (PBD) approach, which entails for structural fire safety to be demonstrated with engineering design approaches similar to the design of a structure to resist wind or earthquake loads, has emerged with an aim of evaluating the fire performance of entire building structures. Different from that of wind and earthquake loads, the uncertain nature of fire loading, in terms of its location, magnitude and distribution, needs to be considered in the PBD structural fire design. Unfortunately, current design methods are incapable of addressing the issue. *** The objective of this research is to develop an advanced PBD approach for stability analysis and design of steel framed buildings accounting for variabilities/uncertainties of building fire loads. Research in this area is severely lacking. The importance of the research is to enhance the fire safety performance of the buildings, including improved protection against catastrophic collapse to safeguard the safety of the public as well as that of rescue workers and firefighters in the event of building fire. Canadians and people elsewhere in the world will benefit from having significantly safer steel building environments in which to live and work. The novelty of the research is that the approach will be able to provide crucial information, concerning not only the stability and integrity of structural steel buildings in building fires, but also the uncertainties and risks associated with fire loading in building fires that are not available either in building codes or through conventional analysis and design methodology. This research will not only advance knowledge in this field, but will also train HQP in the emerging field of structural fire engineering. There is an urgent need for engineers in this discipline as there are very few engineers in Canada and worldwide with the sufficient skills.