Techno Press
Techno Press

Computers and Concrete
  Volume 38, Number 1, July 2026 , pages 87-110
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12989/cac.2026.38.1.087
 


Fire dynamics simulation of concrete beams subjected to channel fires
Yanping Zhu, Ying Zhuo, Pengfei Ma, Genda Chen, Yi Bao

 
Abstract
    This study aims to develop a fire dynamics simulation (FDS) in a Pyrosim software platform for concrete beams subjected to natural gas fueled channel fires with controllable burners. The measured heat release rate was input as the fire load to the concrete beams. The air temperatures in the channel and inside concrete temperatures captured in the FDS are validated by the experimental results. It was found that the FDS and experimental differences in the maximum or average air temperatures are within 20% when the concrete beams loaded at a constant heat release rate. The inside concrete temperature close to the fire source is satisfactorily predicted by the one-dimensional heat conduction superposition from different concrete beam surfaces, and the predicted concrete temperatures bounded the experimental ones. With the validated FDS, a parametric analysis has been conducted to numerically clarify the impact of the side hole area, concrete thermal conductivity, specific heat and wind gust on the fire dynamics and concrete temperatures. The present study is developing a numerical technique to capture fire response of engineering structures.
 
Key Words
    air temperature; fire dynamics simulation (FDS); fire; concrete beams; one-dimensional heat conduction
 
Address
Yanping Zhu: 1) National and Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Intelligent Construction and Maintenance, Nanjing, 211189, China; 2) School of Civil Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, 211189, China
Ying Zhuo, Pengfei Ma, Genda Chen: Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO 65401, USA
Yi Bao: Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
 

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