Transcripción del resumen del autor. This paper discusses a procedure for the use of fire modelling in the performance-based design environment to quantify design fires for commercial buildings. This procedure includes building surveys, medium-and full-scale experiments and computer modelling. In this study, a survey of commercial premises was conducted to determine fire loads and types of combustibles present in these buildings. Statistical data from the literature were analysed to determine the frequency of fires, ignition sources, and locations relevant to these premises. Based on the results of the survey and the statistical analyses a number of fuel packages were designed that represent fire loads and combustible materials in commercial buildings. The fuel packages were used to perform medium- and full-scale, post-flashover fire tests to collect data on heat release rates, compartment temperatures and production and concentration of toxic gases. Based on the experimental results, input data files for the computational model, Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), were developed to simulate the burning characteristics of the fuel packages observed in the experiments. Comparative analysis between FDS model predictions and experimental data of HRR, carbon monoxide (CO), and carbon dioxide (CO2), indicated that FDS model was able to predict the HRR, temperature profile in the burn room, and the total production of CO and CO2 for medium- and large-scale experiments as well as real size stores. One of the greatest impediments to using fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites in buildings and parking garages is their susceptibility to degradation when exposed to elevated temperatures and the limited knowledge on the thermal and mechanical properties of these composites at such temperatures. Glass FRP (GFRP) tensile coupons and single lap-splice coupons were tested in tension to study the mechanical properties under steady-state and transient thermal conditions. Tests were conducted at a range of temperatures between room temperature and +200°C. In terms of tensile strength, approximately half of the strength of the FRP was lost near the glass transition temperature of the epoxy resin matrix. However, 40% of the room temperature strength of the GFRP was still retained at 200°C. The lap-splice tests showed that the FRP-to-FRP bond strength was affected even more by high temperature exposure with 90% loss in lap-splice near the glass transition temperature. An analytical model is also presented in this paper characterizing the mechanical properties at elevated temperature, which in turn will be used in numerical fire endurance models developed by the authors.

4