INVESTIGATION OF THERMAL BEHAVIOR OF MULTILAYERED FIRE RESISTANT STRUCTURE

This paper presents experimental and numerical investigations of thermal behavior under real fire conditions of new generation multilayered fire resistant structure (fire door, dimensions H × W × D: 2090 × 980 × 52 mm) combining high strength and fire safety. This fire door consists of two steel sheets (thickness 1.5 and 0.7 mm) with stone wool ( = 33 kg/m3, k = 0.037 W/mK, E = 5000 N/m2,  = 0.2) insulating layer in between. One surface of the structure was heated in fire furnace for specified period of time of 60 min. Temperature and deformation of opposite surface were measured from outside at selected measuring points during fire resistance test. Results are presented as temperature-time and thermal deformation-time graphs. Experimental results were compared with numerical temperature field simulation results obtained from SolidWorks®Simulation software. Numerical results were found to be in good agreement with experimental data. The percent differences between door temperatures from simulation and fire resistance test don’t exceed 8%. This shows that thermal behaviour of such multilayered structures can be investigated numerically, thus avoiding costly and time-consuming fire resistance tests. It is established that investigated structure should be installed in a way that places thicker steel sheet closer to the potential heat source than thinner one. It is also obtained that stone wool layer of higher density should be used to improve fire resistance of the structure