Development of a pilot furnace for testing structural steels under standard fire model

The research develops the design of two pilot furnaces qualified for supporting the thermal condition which follows the evolution of standard fire model ISO 834, in order to obtain experimental evidence of the changes of the temperature fields for material samples submitted under the fire action; first, so that one material faces the fire directly and the opposite does not face the fire and second, when fire completely envelops the material. The S355NL and S460NL steels both provided with and without steel plates to reflect the thermal radiation have been tested. The experimental study includes the metallographic analysis, as well as with the tensile and hardness tests.