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New Design Fires for Performance Based Engineering of Highway Bridges
Abstract
This paper presents new design fires resulting from vehicle accidents applied to a commonly found highway bridge in the U.K. The new design fires have been derived by modifying localized fires corresponding to the size of vehicles, in which smoke layer and decay with respect to the distance form fire origin is modelled. Four scenarios including four standard vehicle types are investigated associated with a different mean heat release rate (HRR). The measured mean HRR from burning vehicle tests are used to determine a distribution of heat flux along the bridge span. A performance-based approach proposed, in which the bridge fire and its resistance to fire are determined. This methodology can be used by authorities, which responsible for managing a bridge network to assess its vulnerability to a vehicle fire incident