Determination of Area of Fire Origin through Examination of Structural Failure and Deformation

The effects of fire on steel have long been noted and studied. However, a scientific connection between the area of origin for a fire and the amount of steel deformation observed at the scene has never been established. The development and implementation of this type of analysis has the potential to decrease investigation times significantly as the types of structures to which this method would be applicable are typically large, expansive structures. In order to investigate the relationship between structural steel deformations and a fire’s origin, a series of six tests were performed in a smaller size portal frame steel constructed building. The results from these tests were imported into a finite element program called “Vulcan” to investigate the possibility of recreating the conditions observed in the field using a structural modeling program with relative success. The research presented in this dissertation, directed as noted above, was successful in demonstrating the possibility of using the pattern of structural deformations as an indicator of fire origin.