Post-Fire Assessment and Retrofitting of Concrete Buildings: Case Study

Reinforced concrete structures possess good fire-resistance properties and rarely experience failure during a fire incident. However, following a fire incident, proper post-fire assessment and repair of the structure may be needed for rehabilitation of the building. This paper presents the application of the X-ray diffraction technique in the analysis of powder samples extracted from concrete members for the estimation of sectional temperatures reached in a real fire incident. Using these sectional temperatures, a simplified evaluation approach was applied for evaluating the residual capacity of structural members in a fire-damaged building. Results of the analysis showed a reduction of 30% and 27% of beam and column capacity after exposure to a fire incident, respectively. Based on the analysis, recommendations were made for rehabilitating the fire-damaged building to meet current design code specifications. Keywords: concrete microstructure; fire damage; post-fire assessment; X-ray diffraction.