Additional Fire Exposure Time for the Effect of Spalling in Reinforced Concrete Columns

Concrete exposed to fire can experience spalling when the pore pressure increases due to water evaporation resulting in damage to part of the concrete cross-section which causes the loss of the initial cross-sectional symmetry, both thermal and geometrical. This may lead to what is, in essence, a biaxial bending problem in reinforced concrete columns. This study does not deal with the prediction of the occurrence of spalling for which a fully coupled hygro-thermo-mechanical analysis would be required. This work evaluates the consequences that corner spalling and surface spalling have on the fire resistance of reinforced concrete columns and presents a methodology based on the determination of a modified fire resistance time. An advanced fiber based numerical model for evaluating the fire resistance of RC sections exposed to fire is used as a tool to analyse the effect that spalling has on the performance of the columns. The model is able to generate the interaction surfaces of the columns subjected to uniaxial or biaxial bending and 4-sided exposed to the standard fire curve ISO 834. After a parametric analysis, it is observed that the negative effect of spalling can be quantified by means of an additional fire exposure time, which ranges between 0–35 min and depends on the column cross-section configuration, dimensions and load level. Finally, a proposal for the calculation of the modified fire resistance time for the effect of spalling is presented, which may be beneficial for practitioners in design.