ASSESSMENT OF ELEVATED TEMPERATURE EFFECTS ON SELF-COMPACTING AND HIGH-STRENGTH CONCRETE BEAMS IN COMPARISON WITH NORMAL CONCRETE BEAMS

Abstract

Developments in the concrete industry have allowed for the use of concrete types other than conventional concrete, such as self-compacting and high-strength concrete. Conventional concrete beams exhibit a significant reduction in strength following fire exposure. This study includes experimental and theoretical components. An experimental program was designed to investigate the effects of different elevated temperature levels on the most common concrete types. A total of 15 beams were cast using normal, self-compacting, and high-strength concrete beams. Moreover, 12 beams were subjected to temperatures of 400 °C and 600 °C for 1 and 2 h to study the beam behavior under indirect fire conditions. The exposure time had a significant effect on the behaviour of the different beams, particularly the normal concrete, which exhibited a dramatic strength reduction after being subjected to a temperature of 600 °C for 2 h. The self-compacting concrete beam demonstrated acceptable behavior under elevated temperature conditions up to 600 °C. Strong agreements were observed between the experimental results and theoretical analysis, which was performed by the finite element program ANSYS.