2016 Post-Earthquake Fire Performance of a 6-Story Cold-Formed Steel Building
Multi-hazard performance of structures in fire is not new to WPI’s fire protection engineering department. After conducting a series of successful fire tests on a 5-story earthquake-damaged reinforced concrete building in 2012, WPI’s research team conducted another series of fire following earthquake tests, this time on a 6-story light-gauge cold-formed steel framed building. The 63-foot (19.2 m) building was constructed on the Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table (LHPOST), one of the world’s largest earthquake shaking table. LHPOST is located at Englekirk Structural Engineering Center at the University of California San Diego. The main objective of the project was to study the building, seismic, fire and post-fire seismic performance. The academia-industry-government partnered project is a collaboration between two academic institutions (UC San Diego and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)), two government agencies (US Department of Housing and Urban Development and California Seismic Safety Commission) and over fifteen industry partners.