Fire resistance performance of glulam beam

A glulam beam with the size of 4700 mm×300 mm×480 mm(L×W×H) was tested in the furnace to investigate the fire resistance performance of glulam beam according to the temperature curve of ISO834. Three surfaces, the bottom and the two flanks, of the glulam beam were exposed to fire in the test. Simply supported bearings were used to support the beam on which the load of 0.76 kN/m was uniformly set. The experimental results show that: 1) Sectional dimension of glulam beam was greatly diminished due to the serious decomposition and carbonization of the timber. 2) The largest vertical deformation is relatively small and it has not exceeded 3.95 mm until the end of experiment. The maximum temperature on the top surface of the glulam beam attains 180 ℃ at 3437 s, which indicates that the beam have failed according to the European standard of fire resistance tests. 3) The right end of the beam with 16 connecting holes(the connecting holes were used for the connection between bolt and column) and the slit in the beam both burnt intensely and carbonized seriously because the fire could reach the holes and slit of beam facilitating the burning.