A Probabilistic Study on Concrete Columns Exposed to Biaxial Bending at Elevated Temperatures

Abstract

Fire, as one of the most severe accidental load situations, has an important effect on concrete columns. Furthermore, this effect is more pronounced in case an eccentricity is associated with the axial load. Since this situation occurs very frequently, it is significant to investigate the fire performance of concrete columns subjected to biaxial bending. Additionally, differences due to initial imperfections on configurations, cover thickness, as well as the common variability in the concrete compressive strength might cause significant differences to interaction diagrams. Therefore, a probabilistic evaluation is required as a first step to evaluate the safety of concrete columns during fire exposure. In this paper a column subjected to a 4-sided fire exposure in case of a symmetric biaxial load is investigated and Monte Carlo simulations are applied to evaluate probabilistic interaction diagrams for columns in case of fire.