CE 615: Structural Design for Fire - Spring 2026

• To learn about the effects of fire on reinforced concrete and steel structures.
• To learn about the behavior and characterization of fires of different kinds.
• To be able to design reinforced concrete and steel structures under fire conditions.

• Fire characteristics (combustion, ignition, flammability limits, etc.)
• Properties of steel and concrete at high temperatures.
• Heat transfer mechanisms: conduction, convection and radiation. Mathematical modeling of the heat transfer problem.
• Fire as a hazard; development of a fire in the open and in a compartment.
• Stages of a compartment fire: pre-flashover, flashover and post-flashover.
• Characterization of a fire through time-temperature and time-HRR; t² fire model.
• Estimation of fire curves through fire load energy density and compartment characteristics. Ventilation factor; fuel vs. ventilation controlled fire.
• Design and parametric fire curves.
• Heat transfer within concrete structures (semi-infinite idealization) and steel structures (lumped capacity idealization).
• Empirical and code-based methods to compute temperature within structural systems.
• Design of steel structures under fire.
• Design of reinforced concrete structures under fire; 500 isotherm method, zone method.
• Equivalent fire severity.

• Fire-resistant Design of Structures by S. Chandrasekaran and G. Srivastava, CRC Press.

• Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer by T.L. Bergman, A.S. Lavine, F.P. Incropera and D.P. Dewitt, John Wiley & Sons.
• An Introduction to Fire Dynamics by D. Drysdale, Wiley.
• Temperature calculation in Fire Safety Engineering by U. Wickstrom, Springer.

• National Building Code (NBC) 2016 of India.
• IS 800 (steel) and IS 456 (reinforced concrete)
• Eurocode EN 1990:2002 (basis of structural design)
• Eurocode EN 1991-1-1 and EN 1991-1-2 (actions)
• Eurocode EN 1992-1-1 and EN 1992-1-2 (reinforced concrete)
• Eurocode EN 1993-1-1 and EN 1993-1-2 (steel)
• Eurocode EN 1996-1-1 and EN 1996-1-2 (masonry)

• Please be considerate about everyone's time.
• In all emails pertaining to this course, please have "CE615" in the subject line.
  • (note that there is no space or hyphen or anything between CE and 615)

Cheating cases (assignments/codes/exams/project) will be dealt with in accordance with the Institute norms. It is expected that everyone will uphold the honor code.

Following will be the weightage of different components of assessment

• Assignments will entail analysis/practical problems, coding, reports, etc. and may be individual or group.
• Group projects will involve more aggregating tasks including coding, use of a software, or design of larger systems.
• Exams may be in-class or take-home.

It is important to develop the habit of self-learning. A number of reading assignments and self-exercises will be given during the course. These will not be formally graded and it will be expected that students will go through them on a regular basis on their own.

• Introduction to the course and effects of fire on structures.

• Modes of heat transfer. Fourier's law, Newton's law of cooling, and Stefan's law of radiation
• Boundary conditions in fire engineering
• Electrical circuit analogy for heat transfer
• Derivation of the transient heat equation.

• Makar Sankranti

• Lumped heat capacity approach for idealizing heat transfer in conductive materials
• Introduction to natural fire curve and standard fire curve

• Semi-infinite idealization for idealizing heat transfer in insulating materials
• Fire load calculation
• HRR-time models for fire (t² model)

• Behavior of compartment fires and flashover
• Fuel-controlled and ventilation-controlled fire
• Thomas correlation for critical heat flux for flashover of single compartments

• Parametric time-temperature fire curves - EN approach

• Thermal and mechanical properties of steel and concrete at elevated temperatures
• Equivalent fire severity
• Visit to the fire lab
• Assignment 1 given - download from here (due on 11 Feb)

• Overview of heat-transfer calculations
• Use of Eurocodes for determining material properties (thermal and mechanical) and temperature calculations

• Good Friday