FIRE RESISTANCE OF REINFORCED CONCRETE BEAMS: A THREE-DIMENSIONAL FINITE ELEMENT MODEL

This paper presents a three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model for the thermal and mechanical behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) beams exposed to fire. In this model, particular attention is paid to the modeling of interfacial behavior between the steel reinforcement and the concrete, an aspect which has rarely been considered in existing numerical studies. Results obtained using this model are compared with those from previous studies to examine the accuracy of the proposed model. These comparisons show that with the inclusion of the steel-to-concrete interfacial behavior, the deflection of RC beams at elevated temperature can be more accurately predicted.