Experimental study on local buckling of fire-resisting steel columns under fire load

The structural behavior of stub columns using fire-resistant steel has been investigated experimentally under uniform fire load. The newly-developed fire-resistant steel is proven to have higher strength at elevated temperature than that of conventional steel. Also, the requirement of fire-protection in the fire-resisting steel can be released or relaxed as compared with conventional steel structures. However, the design criteria for the application of the fire-resisting steel in steel columns are still limited. To examine the structural behavior of this type of steel columns under fire load, a total of 24 stub column specimens, including both box columns and H columns, reached their limit states due to axial load under fire condition. The main purpose of these studies is to evaluate the variations of the ultimate strength of steel columns due to different width-to-thickness ratios under specified elevated temperature; in addition, to investigate the reduction effects on column strength resulting in the increasing temperature; and finally, to establish the design guidelines of steel columns using fire-resisting steel. From the experimental results, it is found that the ultimate loads of the stub columns decrease while the width-to-thickness ratios or the temperature increases. However, with the increase of temperature, the effect of the width-to-thickness ratio on ultimate strength decreases. It is also found that the effect of the width-to-thickness ratio on the ultimate strength of box column at elevated temperature is more significant than that of H column. Based on these studies, design guidelines are proposed for the requirement of the width-to-thickness ratios of both box column and H column fabricated from fire-resisting steel.