Purpose Despite recognizing the significance of risk-based frameworks in fire safety engineering, the usual approach in structural fire design is largely member/component level, wherein effect of uncertainties influencing the fire resistance of structures are not explicitly considered. In this context, a probabilistic framework is presented to investigate the vulnerability of a reinforced concrete (RC) members and structure under fire loading scenario. Design/methodology/approach The RC structures exposed to fire are modeled in a finite element (FE) platform incorporating material and geometric nonlinearity, in which the transient thermo-mechanical analysis is carried out by suitably incorporating the temperature variation of thermal and mechanical properties of both concrete and steel rebar. The stochasticity in the system is considered in structural resistance, thermal and fire model parameters, and the subsequent fragility curves are developed considering threshold limit state of deflection. Findings The fire resistance of RC structure is reported to be significantly lower in comparison to the RC members, thereby illustrating the current prescriptive design approaches based on studies of structural member behavior to be crucial from a safety and reliability point of view. Practical implications The framework developed for the vulnerability assessment of RC structures under fire hazard through FE analysis can be effectively used to estimate the structural fire resistance for other similar structure to enhance safety and reliability of structures under such extreme threats. Originality/value The paper proposes a novel methodology for vulnerability assessment of three-dimensional RC structures under fire hazard through FE analysis and provides comparison of the structural fragility with fragility developed for structural members. Moreover, the research emphasizes to assume 3D behavior of the structure rather than the approximate 2D behavior.
