Consolidated Fire Analysis

Consolidated fire analysis (CFA) combines numerical simulation and physical element testing in order to analyse the global behaviour of structures in fire. In todays structural design practise, the fire resistance is usually assessed based on the structural fire behaviour of isolated load-bearing members and connections under natural fire or standard fire exposure. However, global fire tests and experience from real fire incidents have proven that in case of fire entire structures perform better, than predicted on the basis of their single components performance. This is due to global structural effects, like load redistributions or change of the structural system. 

As consolidated fire analysis facilitates the investigation of the global structural behaviour, while only testing a substructure, it might become increasingly important and a valuable tool in fire safety engineering. The goal of this research project is the development of the testing technique and its validation for fire engineering applications.