Timber Cross-Section Verification in Fire Situation

Resumo

Temperature has a significant influence on the timber structural elements behavior. Such material, anisotropic, with irregular fibers and the presence of knots, and flammable, when exposed to high temperatures (fire situation), has its physical and resistance properties deteriorated. This deterioration leads to a considerable loss of stiffness and strength of timber structural systems. During a fire, the thermal analysis of the structural element cross-section becomes dominant, since the behavior of the beam, column, truss or frame under high temperature depends directly on this phase. This thermal analysis allows for determining the temperature field
variation through the boundary conditions adopted for the timber cross-section model. Therefore, the objective of this study is to carry out transient thermal analysis, via FEM, of a timber cross-section widely used in civil construction. Such numerical analysis will be carried out through the CS-ASA/FA module with additions of graphical interfaces via GiD platform. Thus, a more complete and accurate visualization of the temperature field variation in the timber cross-section is expected. Finally, comparisons are made with other literature or software results, as SAFIR, to prove the capability of the CS-ASA/FA module and GiD graphical interfaces.