Motivation, drivers and barriers for a knowledge-based test environment in structural fire safety engineering science

Structural fire testing has traditionally relied on the use of the standard fire resistance test (i.e. furnace test) for assuring regulatory compliance of structural elements and assemblies, and in many cases also for developing the scientific understanding of structural response to fire. Conceived in the early 1900s and fundamentally unchanged since then, the standard testing procedure is characterized by its high cost and low repeatability. A novel test method, the Heat-Transfer Rate Inducing System (H-TRIS), resulting from a mental shift associated with controlling the thermal exposure not by temperature (e.g. temperature measured by thermocouples) but rather by the time-history of incident heat flux, was conceived, developed, and validated within the scope of the work presented in this paper. H-TRIS allows for experimental studies to be carried out with high repeatability, imposing rationally quantifiable thermal exposure, all at low economic and temporal cost. This works aims at demonstrating that a rational, and practical, understanding of the fire performance of structural systems during real fires is unlikely to be achieved only by performing additional standard fire resistance tests. Hence, H-TRIS presents an opportunity to help promote an industry-wide move away from the contemporary pass/fail and costly furnace testing environment.