Temperature development of cold formed steel column channel section under standard fire

Abstract

The use of Cold formed steel is in demand for construction due to its varied advantages. However the knowledge of this material's behaviours under fire is limited since it is perceived that its thinner thickness has no resistance to fire. This fire safety issue has limited the use of this material as building columns. A study was conducted to investigate the structure of cold formed steel channel column under fire condition which had testes four (4) columns. One (1) column was loaded until failure under normal condition, and three (3) columns were loaded at different degrees of utilisations under the standard ISO 834 fire condition and they were heated until failure. The rise of temperature on the column surface was monitored using thermocouple type K at three levels along the columns' height. The analyses of the thermocouple readings were made to evaluate the mean temperature of the columns and found that the critical temperature of the cold formed steel channel columns could reach up to 600 °C for a lower degree of utilization. Finally, the critical temperature and time for the column could be used in proposing a fire safety design rules for cold formed steel columns in the future.