Modeling Fire Induced Burnthrough Rupture of Marine Grade Aluminum Panels

Abstract

Burnthrough of aluminum plates subjected fire was experimentally and numerically explored. Experimental burnthrough was observed to occur below the material melting temperature and during thermal steady state leading to the development of a new creep rupture based burnthrough model. To characterize this behavior, a series of uniaxial, isothermal creep experiments were used in combination with published data. The creep rupture based burnthrough model was implemented in finite element models of the burnthrough experiments. Simulated burnthrough times were generally within 50% of experimental values. Much of this difference is attributed to the repeatability of the diffusion flame exposures which resulted in variations in experimental and simulated burnthrough times of up to 50%.