Effect of Elevated Temperature on Steel Structural Buildings.

The structural steel elements of buildings are normally not subjected to full design strength, under normal operation. Structural steel is a non-combustible material and its properties can be affected by elevated temperatures. The terrorist attack on multi-storey steel structure World Trade Centre in New York is worst event in the history, which resulted in tragic loss of lives. Therefore, high rise steel buildings must be able to resist high temperatures so that there is a minimum damage to the structure. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the temperature effects on multi-storey steel building subjected to elevated temperature. In this paper, a study is made to investigate the effect of elevated temperature on structural elements of steel buildings. The main properties of steel that were found to change with an increase in temperature from 20 degree centigrade to 1400 0C are modulus of elasticity of steel, and yield strength of the structural steel. High grade steel, Fe410 was found to better resist the temperature changes as compared to Fe250. These results are expected to help the designers and planners in making appropriate provisions for providing a higher temperature resistance to the steel structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]