Experimental and numerical studies of six small-scale continuous concrete slabs subjected to travelling fires

Abstract This paper presents the experimental results of six small-scale continuous reinforced concrete slabs with three compartments subjected to various compartment fire scenarios. The study investigates the influence of several key factors, including concrete age, thickness (span-thickness ratio), applied loads, and fire scenarios, on the fire behaviour of the continuous slabs. A nonlinear finite element program, Vulcan, was used to predict the fire behaviour of three tested slabs where spalling did not appear. The results indicated that increasing the slab thickness is one of the most effective methods for enhancing the fire resistance performance of continuous slabs subjected to any fire scenario. As the span-thickness ratio increased, the applied load had an increasingly significant effect on the deflection trend and maximum deflection of each span in the continuous slab. The conventional temperature failure criteria should be modified to consider the detrimental effects of fire-spreading scenarios, particularly the effects of a time delay and the direction of fire spreading. The numerical results revealed that, for any fire scenario, larger thermal straining leads to a larger mid-span deflection in continuous slabs subjected to various travelling fires.