A world first at the CERIB Fire Testing Centre!

As part of his thesis, which is a continuation of previous work carried out, Silvio Renard, doctoral engineer in the R&D team of the Cerib Fire Testing Centre, has successfully carried out a hybrid fire resistance test of a full-scale structure with 3 degrees of freedom!

Why “hybrid” and for what purpose?

A hybrid fire testing approach is based on a physical and numerical sub-structuring method. To assess the fire behaviour of a part of a building structure, a computer simulation using the SAFIR software is carried out simultaneously with an experiment in the Prométhée furnace, which has unique capabilities for measuring and reproducing forces and stresses.

This method allows what standardised test methods or calculation methods alone do not allow. To deal with innovative construction processes and, in some cases, to assess the performance of the tested elements more precisely, more accurately and less unfavourably.

This provides designers and manufacturers with data for optimising these elements and/or improving the level of fire safety.

This is a new generation of fire testing methodology that replaces, so to speak, a full-scale fire test on an entire structure, which is impractical and too expensive.

And the test, carried out for almost 3 hours, is undoubtedly a world first. A nice defence in the making.

Jean-Marc Fransen, professor at the University of Liège and Cerib administrator, and Jean-Christophe Mindeguia, lecturer at the University of Bordeaux, both recognised specialists in the fire behaviour of structures, must be associated with this success.