State-of-the-art Review on

Structural Fire Safety following

Earthquakes
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ME 720– FIRE RESISTANCE

RESEARCH PROJECT

Ghaith Alshamsi 20752587

Table of Contents
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Introduction
Historical Review on Post-earthquake Fires
Motivation and Significance
State-of-the-art Review
Conclusion
Future Research Needs
References
Introduction
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Most earthquakes are followed by post-earthquake events

such as liquefaction and landslides.

Post-earthquake fires are considered a serious threat in cities

located in moderate-to-high seismic regions.

Simultaneous ignitions can develop into mass conflagrations.

Fire was responsible for 78% of the damage following the

Great Kanto Earthquake

 Historical Review on Post-earthquake Fires
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Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

and Fire
The Great Kanto Earthquake and Fire

The 1931 Napier Earthquake and Fire

The 1995 Northridge Earthquake and

Fire
The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake

and Fires Figure 1: Seismic Map of the Kanto

Earthquake.
Introduction
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Figure 2: Mass conflagrations due to the 1906 San Francisco EQ (left); Burnt remains of fire following the Great
East Japan EQ(right).
Motivation and Significance
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Lack of design guidelines addressing post-

earthquake fires.
Prescriptive codes are very limited

Need to develop probabilistic mitigation techniques

State-of-the-art Review
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Li and Carlton (2015) proposed a general performance-based

engineering framework for fire following earthquake.

Memari & Mahmoud (2018) formulated a performance-

based engineering framework for probabilistic analysis of

fires following earthquakes.
Nishino et al. (2012) developed an evaluation model to

predict the fire risk considering multiple scenarios of fire

spread and evacuation for urban post-earthquake fires.
State-of-the-art Review
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Figure 3: Correlation of uncertainty parameters and post-earthquake fires according to Nishino et al.
State-of-the-art Review
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Kamath et al. (2015) carried out a full-scale test on a reinforced

concrete frame subjected to a post-earthquake fire scenario.

Memari et al. (2013) investigated the effects of post-earthquake

fires on steel moment frames with reduced beam sections

(RBS).
Jelinek et al. (2017) studied the structural response of steel
frames to post-earthquake fires (PEFs) and compared them
with the response of steel frames exposed to fire only
State-of-the-art Review
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Figure 2: Testing procedure of the study conducted by Memari et al. (2013)

Conclusion
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Currently, the study of interactions between earthquake

and fire is still in nits infancy.

There is a pressing need to develop performance-based

design methods that quantify the combined effects of

fires following earthquakes.
Numerous analytical and experimental studies are

required in order to develop guidelines.

Future Research Needs
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To simulate real life conditions, it is essential to carry out

full scale tests on structures that incorporate fully operating

fire systems.
Experiments regarding post-earthquake fires should be

expanded to include new materials.

Full scale experiments should be repeated under a range of

test environments (humidity, wind speeds) to simulate

random meteorological conditions.
References
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[1] Behrouz Behnam, Post-Earthquake Fire Analysis in Urban Structures: Risk Managment Strategies.: CRC Press, 2016, 2016.
[2] Charles Scawthorn, John M. Eidinger, and Anshel J. Schiff, Fire Following Earthquake. Reston, VA: American Society of Civil
Engineers, 2005.
[3] Mehrad Memari, "Performance of Steel Structures Subjected To Fire Following Earthquake," Colorado State University,
Colorado, PhD Thesis 2016.
[4] Shahab Mousavi, Ashutosh Bagchi, and Venkatesh Kodur, "Review of Post-earthquake Fire Hazard to Building Structures,"
Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, vol. 35, pp. 689-698, 2008.
[5] Alan G. Hull, "Tectonics of the 1931 Hawke's Bay Earthquake," New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, pp. 309-320,
1990.
[6] Y. Li and A. Carlton, "Performance-Based Engineering Framework for Fire Following Earthquake," in Structures Congress,
Portland, Oregon, 2015.
[7] M. Memari and H. Mahmoud, "Framework for a Performance-based Analysis of Fires Following Earthquakes," Engineering
Structures, no. 171, pp. 794-805, 2018.
[8] Tomoaki Nishino, Takeyoshi Tanaka, and Akihiko Hokugo, "An Evaluation Method for the Urban Post-earthquake Fire Risk
Considering Multiple Scenarios of Fire Spread and Evacuation," Fire Safety Journal, vol. 54, pp. 167-180, 2012.
[9] Praveen Kamath et al., "Full-scale Fire Test on an Earthquake-damaged Reinforced Concrete Frame," Fire Safety Journal, vol.
73, pp. 1-19, 2015.
[10] Mehrdad Memari, Collin Turbert, and Hussam Mahmoud, "Effects of Fire Following Earthquakes on Steel Frames with
Reduced Beam Sections," in Structures Congress 2013, 2013.
[11] S. E. Quiel and M. Garlock, "Modeling High-Rise Steel Framed Buildings Under Fire," in Structures Congress: Crossing
Borders, 2008.
[12] T. Jelinek, V. Zania, and L. Giuliani, "Post-earthquake Fire Resistance of Steel Buildings," Journal of Construction Steel
Research, no. 138, pp. 774-782, 2017.