Fire design methods for structures with timber framework

Abstract

Timber structures are environmentally friendly in terms of decreasing the impact of human activity on the planet. Reliability of timber structures can be provided by the corresponding fire resistance so as fire risk is one of the most significant disadvantages of timber structures. Development of new method for calculation of actual fire resistance is a topical issue. The first draft of method for calculation of actual fire resistance and classes of fire risk for load-bearing timber structures based on Russian national standard, was compared with fire design methods based on European norm. The structure of one-storey glued load-bearing timber framework for sports hall of Corporative University of Sberbank was used as an example for the comparison. The main load bearing structure of the framework in the transversal direction is two-hinge glued laminated timber frame with the span equal to 24 m, consisting of the two columns with rectangular glued cross-sections and trapezium truss with triangular lattice system and two cantilevers. It was stated, that methods based on European norm and method based on Russian national standard enable to obtain comparable results for evaluation of fire resistance for glued laminated load-bearing timber frameworks structure. However, the method based on Russian national standard did not contain information for evaluation of fire resistance of joints of timber structures, which often is determinant for the timber frameworks. Therefore, adding of the chapter including approach to evaluation of fire resistance of the joints of timber structures is possible direction for further development of the method based on Russian national standard.

Keywords

• glued load-bearing timber framework
• trapezium timber truss
• glued timber decking
• reduced cross-sections method
• reduced properties method
• actual fire resistance