Experimental and numerical investigation of the response of GLT beams exposed to fire

Abstract This paper presents a combined experimental and numerical investigation of the behavior of glued laminated timber beams when exposed to fire. The influence on the time variation of charring rates based on the evolution of temperature profiles is examined for different fire scenarios and durations as well as different beam’s cross-section sizes. Predictions of charring depths provided by numerical simulations of heat transfer and simplified charring rate models are compared. In the absence of a mass transport representation, a Bayesian inference is introduced to identify the temperature-dependent material parameters for the conventional heat transfer model. A similar approach is adopted when adjusting the selected parameters of the charring rate models to account for variations in actual fire scenarios, which potentially depart from standard fire exposure. When compared to experimental results, both approaches confirmed their predictive capabilities, particularly in the stage of initial design. Since presented in the framework of Bayesian statistics, they open the door to fully stochastic analysis with an emphasis on the load bearing capacity of the studied beams.