The tabular structural fire design method for centrally loaded composite columns consisting of concrete filled steel circular hollow sections proposed in EN 1994-1-2:2005 (Eurocode 4: Design of Composite Steel and Concrete Structures - Structural Fire Design) is described here. A design procedure is then discussed, based on the determination of the temperature distribution in the cross sectional area and along the column length. A finite element based computer program is developed to implement the three-dimensional thermal analysis of different materials and geometries for given time versus temperature fire data. An example problem is shown, comparing the tabular method proposed in EN 1994-1-2:2005 and the method presented in this work.
composite structures; concrete filled steel circular hollow columns; three-dimensional thermal analysis; finite element analysis; structural fire design