Development and implementation of coupling method for CFD-FEM analyses of steel structures in natural fire

Abstract

The work aims in the problem of numerical analysis of steel structures under natural fire. The emphasis is put on the proper calculation of temperature field inside the structural members and, in particular, the non-uniform temperature distribution inside the section. Thus, the main contribution is the coupling method between computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element analysis (FEA). Coupling is done by dedicated scripts, which utilize developed methods and compute the heat transfer between gas and solid phase. The example of simple steel structure under different fire scenarios is presented. Conclusions presenting advantages of proposed procedure are given.