Effects of Fire on the Strength of Reinforced Concrete Structural Members (original) (raw)

This multidisciplinary research focuses on the effect of fire on structures due to the Boko Haram insurgency in Maiduguri, Northern Nigeria. It is aimed at giving a further contribution to understand the effect of fire with respect to the local aggregates, quenching methods and proposing an assessment methodology based on a suitable analytical procedure applied to reinforced concrete subjected to sustained fire. Cement, river sand, Bama gravel and water in standard proportion in accordance to BS1881 Part 101 were mixed to produce beams, slabs and cubes of different sizes and cured for 28 days. The samples were burnt in a designed fire simulation furnace using sugarcane bagasse as fuel with varying air velocities for 2 hours. Cooling of samples was carried out using water splashing, CO2 powder fire extinguisher and air cooling methods before the compressive strength tests using a Seidner Compressive Testing Machine and Non-destructive test with Rebound Hammer. The scanning electron m...