Abstract

For structures, especially steel structures, fire incidents are one of the major causes of damage and even collapse of buildings. It has been estimated that from 2012 to 2013, there were about 64,000 fire outbreaks in buildings around the world. The collapse of World Trade Center 7 (WTC7), which was caused by fire set by falling debris from the World Trade Center, makes fire-induced building collapse a pressing issue that design engineers need to tackle. It also brought the attention of researchers to the study of the structural behaviour of buildings under fire conditions and effective design methods to prevent or delay the collapse of buildings.