An experimental study on crack and debonding of intumescent coatings and their effects on temperature development of steel elements

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Abstract

This paper presents the results of an experimental study to investigate failure modes of intumescent coatings and
their effects on temperatures attained in steel sections and fire resistance of steel columns. Tests were carried out
on unloaded steel plates, unloaded short sections and axially loaded long columns. The loaded column specimens
had four different surfaces, stainless steel, untreated carbon steel, sand-blasted carbon steel and carbon steel with
one layer of fibre cloth. The failure modes of intumescent coating char included cracks, debonding and
detachment. Detachment seemed to have occurred after the fire tests because there was no evidence of a sudden
jump in temperature. The cracks varied from fine distributed cracks to large discrete cracks. These intumescent
coating failure modes affected not only average temperatures of the steel but also temperature distributions in
the steel sections. The average temperatures attained in the unloaded steel sections were lower than those in the
loaded steel columns. The temperature differences for the unloaded plate and sections were relatively small,
lower than 2.2% and 6.3% respectively, while they were high for the loaded test specimens, 10–20% of the
average.
Original languageEnglish
Article number103325
JournalFire Safety Journal
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

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