Behavior of external welded flange-bolted web joints of steel structure exposed to fire

In order to investigate the behavior of external welded flange-bolted web joints of steel structure exposed to fire,a series of experiments were carried out.Influence of fire model and load ratio on the behavior of the joints,failure characteristics and fracture modes of the joints exposed to fire were studied.The experimental results indicated that the fire model has a great influence on the temperature rising as well as temperature distribution of the joints exposed to fire.A slower temperature rising fire will lead to slower temperature rising and more uniform temperature distribution of joint.Decrease of the load ratio will improve the fire-resistant capability of the joint.Furthermore,a highly detailed three-dimensional(3-D) finite element model(FEM) was set up with ANSYS software to predict the behavior of the external welded flange-bolted web joints exposed to fire.Comparisons between the predicted results and the experimental results indicated that FEM has an acceptable degree of accuracy to predict the behavior of this type of joints exposed to fire.