Assessment of Concrete Susceptibility to Fire Spalling: A Report on the State-of-the-art in Testing Procedures. (2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Krzemień, Katarzyna; Hager, Izabela
• Is Part Of: Procedia engineering. Volume 108(2015)
• Page Start: 285
• Page End: 292
• Publication Date: 2015
• Subjects: fire concrete spalling -- concrete structures -- assessment -- testing setups; Engineering -- Congresses; Engineering -- Periodicals; Engineering; Conference proceedings; Periodicals; 620.005
• DOI: 10.1016/j.proeng.2015.06.149
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1877-7058

Abstract

Abstract: The assessment of concrete behavior at high temperature is done by a variety of tests carried out on specimens of different sizes. Small-scale tests examine concrete's behavior when exposed to elevated temperature, while full-scale fire tests are carried out on full-sized concrete elements in which the boundary conditions, external load and conditioning correspond to design assumptions. Complementary to these is the medium-scale test carried out on a portion of a slab's surface area which has been exposed to fire, ca. 1m 2 . Such medium-scale tests are often used as a cost-effective solution to verify the behavior of a specific concrete mix in fire conditions. This paper reviews the existing furnaces, testing procedures and laboratory setups used to assess a material's tendency to spall. Its objective is to emphasize the need to unify spalling risk assessment procedures by establishing recommended guidelines for testing.