DESIGN OF STEEL AND COMPOSITE OPEN CAR PARKS UNDER FIRE

Steel and concrete are the most commonly used materials for open car park buildings because of their numerous advantages. Open car parks are characterized by high ventilation that keeps the fire limited on the ignition zone, not leading to a flash-over, what justify using fire engineering methodology for assessing the structural behavior of steel and composite open car parks under fire, based on a Natural Fire Concept. The methodology for assessing this structural behavior under fire is presented in this paper, and is characterized by the following steps (1): i) definition of fire scenario(s), ii) calculation of the rate of heat release and iii) analysis of structural behavior. The research significance of this methodology is justified by the discrepancies on the design requirements for this type of structure in different European countries (2). At the end of the paper, an example of application of this methodology to fire design an open composite steel-concrete car park with eight floors (3) is presented and is compared to advanced calculation methods.