The influence of parametric fire scenarios on structural timber performance and reliability
This report summarises the results of a project which was conceived to assess the impact of different fires on the level of safety in a timber structure. The means of achieving this was to measure the response of a number of timber elements to a range of fires in a furnace and to identify and quantify the resulting factors which influence the load bearing capacity of timber construction when exposed to the temperature time curves applied during these experiments. In total 32 timber specimens were tested under either standard fire exposure or parametric fire exposure, comprising either a short hot or a long cool parametric fire. 10 specimens were also subjected to destructive reference testing and all specimens were subject to non-destructive reference testing at ambient temperatures in order to ensure uniformity between the different groups used in the different tests