Experimental Investigation for Fire Safety of Full Scale ECC Coupling Beam

An advanced R/C structural system for high-rise residential buildings has been developed by adopting reinforced ECC (R/ECC) coupling beams as a key technology. In this high-rise building application, fire endurance of the R/ECC coupling beam is a critical issue. Fire safety requirement for this application is to maintain load resistance for 3 h during fire accident. To demonstrate the fire safety performance, fire test using 4 m long full scale R/ECC beam was conducted, where heating rate in a testing furnace followed ISO 834 standard up to around 1300 °C. As a result, observed temperature of the reinforcing steel in 3-h fire test was as low as 200 °C and much less than allowable maximum temperature of 500 °C. It is concluded that R/ECC has a sufficient fire endurance performance applicable to high-rise buildings.