First evaluation of the structural performance of traditional brickwork after standard fire exposure

The paper addresses the issues of fire behavior of masonry walls made of traditional/historical component materials (bricks and mortar). There are reasons for coupling investigations on the residual mechanical properties to fire resistance data, aiming at a more complete knowledge of the behavior of a masonry member during and after fire exposure. The paper is part of a research that aims at investigating the relationship between fire and post-fire (i.e. residual) mechanical behavior of masonry walls, paying attention to scale-related problems and to the possible exploitation of numerical tools to establish simplified approaches. The goal is to establish relationships between fire resistance ratings under exposure and decay in mechanical properties after exposure; the parameter of wall thickness is especially investigated, by choosing four different values (i.e. 12, 25, 38 and 51 cm). This is performed by means of FEM analysis with DIANA 9.4.4 software, simulating a standard ISO 834 fire resistance test followed by a mechanical compressive failure test on each investigated type of wall. The approach, successfully tested against experimental data already available, features a preliminary transient heat flow analysis which gives a numerical prediction of fire resistance after violation of I (Insulation) criterion; then, a staggered heat flow - stress analysis repeats the heating of the wall up to insulation failure and calculates the thermal strain accounting for cracking; finally, a ‘cold’ structural analysis in compression is performed on the thermally-deformed model after cooling. The paper also addresses a way for the extended application of the research outcomes, relying on a simple approach based on the concept of equivalent fire severity.