Residual strength of concrete-filled RHS columns after exposure to the ISO-834 standard fire

The residual strength of a composite column may be used to assess the potential damage caused by fire and help to establish an approach to calculate the structural fire protection for minimum post-fire repair. The behavior of six rectangular hollow structural steel (RHS) columns filled with concrete, with or without fire protection, after exposure to the ISO-834 standard fire (ISO 834, 1975), subjected to axial or eccentric loads have been experimentally investigated and the results presented in this paper. Comparisons are made with predicted column strengths using the existing codes such as LRFD-AISC-1994, AIJ-1997, EC4-1996 and GJB4142-2000. It was found, in general, that the loss of the strength of the specimens without protections was significantly greater than that of columns with fire protection. A mechanics model is developed in this paper for concrete-filled RHS columns after exposure to the ISO-834 Standard Fire (ISO 834, 1975), and is a development of the analysis used for ambient condition (Han et al., 2001). The predicted load versus mid-span deflection relationship for the composite columns is in good agreement with test results. Based on the theoretical model, influence of the changing strength of the materials, fire duration time, sectional dimensions, steel ratio, load eccentricity ratio, depth-to-width ratio and slenderness ratio on the residual strength index (RSI) is discussed. It was found that, in general, the slenderness ratio, sectional dimensions and the fire duration time have a significant influence on the residual strength index (RSI). However, the steel ratio, the depth-to-width ratio, the load eccentricity ratio and the strength of the materials have a moderate influence on RSI. Finally, formulas suitable for incorporation into a building code, for the calculation of the residual strength of the concrete-filled RHS columns after exposure to ISO-834 standard fire is developed based on the parametric analysis results.