CONSOLIDATED FIRE TESTING - A FRAMEWORK FOR THERMO-MECHANICAL MODELLING

Consolidated testing facilitates the investigation of the global behavior of structures subjected to fire and therefore may become increasingly important in structural fire engineering. In order to develop a consolidated testing procedure that meets the requirements arising from structural fire engineering and considers thermal strains, thermal creep effects as well as strength and stiffness degradation, a consolidated testing benchmark problem is elaborated. The benchmark problem allows to perform coupled experimental and numerical tests that can be verified by pure physical testing. Furthermore, a framework for a consolidated test setup is developed, including a tangent stiffness update algorithm. Two preliminary tests at ambient temperature show the eligibility of the consolidated testing framework and are presented in this paper.