Development of the Communication framework for Hybrid Fire Testing: applications in the virtual and real environment

Published

January 1, 2020

Author(s)

Ana Sauca, Chao Zhang, Artur A. Chernovsky, Mina S. Seif

Abstract

Hybrid fire testing is a new technique (under development) to performing fire test. It was inspired from subtructuring method and assumes testing individual structural members, as during standard fire testing, which communicate with the analytical/numerical model of the surrounding structure with the aim of reproducing the global behavior of the analyzed structure. During the hybrid fire test, the tested member exchanges information with the modelled member, and this exchange is possible through the communication framework. The communication framework is a key element for a successful hybrid fire testing and this paper will present the development of such a communication in Matlab. To validate the communication framework, first, a single degree of freedom linear system was analyzed in the virtual (both subtructures are modelled separately) and real environment (one substructure is tested and the other one is modeled). The same communication framework was used successfully when analyzing a ten-story steel structure exposed to a designed fire in the virtual environment. Multiple degrees of freedom were controlled during the virtual hybrid fire test and a sensitivity analysis was presented to understand the importance of some parameters in a hybrid fire test. The communication framework was successfully used in different case studies with the final aim to be used during a real hybrid fire test performed on a real structure.

Citation

Fire Safety Journal

Volume

111

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

DOI Link

Keywords

hybrid fire testing, substructuring, communication framework, designed fires

Citation

Sauca, A. , Zhang, C. , Chernovsky, A. and Seif, M. (2020), Development of the Communication framework for Hybrid Fire Testing: applications in the virtual and real environment, Fire Safety Journal, [online], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2019.102937 (Accessed January 2, 2025)