Usually the design of fire doors is carried out to fulfil thermal requirements only, whereas also thermal distortion could significantly affect the safety behavior of the door. Indeed, the door tends to bend away from its supporting frame due to a non-uniform temperature distribution, which could lead to flame and smoke propagation. In this work an innovative design scheme is proposed, where the mechanical response of the door is enhanced without affecting its insulating properties. This improvement is achieved by changing the disposition of the constitutive elements (insulating material and structural plates). The behavior of a conventional and of an innovative door during a fire test was simulated with three-dimensional (3D) finite element models. A non-linear thermo-mechanical transient analysis was performed as well. The numerical results were validated with an experimental campaign made on true scale specimens, where the doors were heated by a furnace reaching a maximum temperature of 950°C. The temperature distribution was measured with several thermocouples and an infrared camera, whereas displacements were monitored with a laser sensor. It was observed that, while temperatures on the unexposed surface were around 120°C in both cases, the maximum out-of-plane displacement measured in the innovative door was 3 times smaller than that of the conventional configuration. © 2017 Springer Science+Business Media New York

Innovative Design of Fire Doors: Computational Modeling and Experimental Validation

MORO, Luciano;DE BONA, Francesco;GASPARETTO, Alessandro;
2017-01-01

Abstract

Usually the design of fire doors is carried out to fulfil thermal requirements only, whereas also thermal distortion could significantly affect the safety behavior of the door. Indeed, the door tends to bend away from its supporting frame due to a non-uniform temperature distribution, which could lead to flame and smoke propagation. In this work an innovative design scheme is proposed, where the mechanical response of the door is enhanced without affecting its insulating properties. This improvement is achieved by changing the disposition of the constitutive elements (insulating material and structural plates). The behavior of a conventional and of an innovative door during a fire test was simulated with three-dimensional (3D) finite element models. A non-linear thermo-mechanical transient analysis was performed as well. The numerical results were validated with an experimental campaign made on true scale specimens, where the doors were heated by a furnace reaching a maximum temperature of 950°C. The temperature distribution was measured with several thermocouples and an infrared camera, whereas displacements were monitored with a laser sensor. It was observed that, while temperatures on the unexposed surface were around 120°C in both cases, the maximum out-of-plane displacement measured in the innovative door was 3 times smaller than that of the conventional configuration. © 2017 Springer Science+Business Media New York
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
fire_technology_2017.pdf

non disponibili

Descrizione: pdf editoriale
Tipologia: Versione Editoriale (PDF)
Licenza: Non pubblico
Dimensione 4.12 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
4.12 MB Adobe PDF   Visualizza/Apri   Richiedi una copia

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11390/1112745
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 10
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 7
social impact