Did you know that you could use Consteel to perform structural analysis at room and elevated temperatures as part of design process for fire resistance?

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Did you know that you could use Consteel to determine the critical temperature of a steel beam protected against fire with intumescent painting?

To perform this calculation, you first need to create a Fire load group and include at least one fire load case.

For critical temperature determination, the analysis must be set to room temperature material properties, because the objective is to find the exact temperature at which the steel section can no longer resist the applied loads while the intumescent coating reacts.

The key step is to assign reactive fire protection to the beam. This activates Consteel’s intumescent coating model, which calculates the temperature at which the reduced cross-section resistance equals the internal forces from the applied load combination. The software accounts for tension, compression, bending, and combined loading using Eurocode reduction factors, including interaction checks for complex load scenarios.

Results are available in the Predesign Parameters, where the critical temperature is visualized per member. You can also inspect detailed information in the Section Module, including the applied fire curve, the steel temperature profile, and the achieved versus required fire resistance.

Additionally, Consteel can optionally determine the required thickness of the intumescent coating from product tables based on the calculated critical temperature, considering the environmental exposure and structural element type.

After completing the fire design, you can also include an intumescent paint design in the documentation. This report can list each cross-section selected for painting, along with the section name, fire protection surface to be painted, A/V ratio, and the critical temperature for each member.

Download the example model and try it!

If you haven’t tried Consteel yet, request a trial for free!

Example model for calculate critical temperature in Consteel

Watch our user guide about How to use the critical temperature feature to learn more.

Critical temperature calculation in Consteel

The calculation of the critical temperature is available in Consteel since the release of version 14. As an introduction of this feature, we prepared a video that gives some theoretical background on the topic, and demonstrates its usage in Consteel. It is shown how to prepare the model, how to execute the analysis and design, and how to create documentation about the critical temperature results.

Check out our user guide to learn more!

The case study exposes a practical evaluation of fire resistance of an old structure of a Spanish industrial building composed of steel built-up members; the truss members are angles connected through packing plates and the columns are battened chords. A simple calculation model was used element by element. First, heat is transferred to individual steel elements by convection and radiation in thermal study. The contributions of these two modes of heat transfer were treated by a practical approach. In mechanical study, the second order analysis was used with global imperfections. Finally, the fire resistance was evaluated R15 after some proposals.

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In Hungary only since 2008 is allowed to use the structural fire engineering methods for fire design. The Eurocode provides methods and standards for these calculations. The practising engineers have no experience to apply these methods; therefore studies are made about them, like this, which is based on a bachelor thesis work. Our intention is also dual. First we study the fire design process of the frequently used steel structures and present it to the practising engineers. On the other hand we analyse the maximum fire resistance of these unprotected steel structures, and looking for different methods to fulfil the requirements of R30 fire resistance class.

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