Abstract
Traditionally, the thickness of fire protection materials of structural elements such as beam and column have been decided by fire test using the predominant steel section of $H-300{\times}300{\times}10{\times}15$ for column and $H-400{\times}200{\times}8{\times}13$ for beam in Korea. But this way of determination of fire protection thickness yields very unduly results. Because the temperature-increment rate of structural steel elements depends mainly on magnitude of their cross-areas. In general, the thicker size of cross-areas for structural elements, the lower temperature shows up. It had already proved that the fire protection thickness only depends on the size of cross-areas and the fire protection method for three-fide or four-side exposed conditions in European countries, the United State of America and so on. To demonstrate there would be differences among various cross-areas for structural elements, we conducted several fire tests with full-scale specimens of beams and columns. For the determination of critical temperature for steel section when the fire resistant performance is needed to be decided, we conducted with a loaded fire test for beam and column, respectively. The small column in 1.0 meter length and beam in 1.5 meter length were used in order to deprive the rational fire protection thickness of structural elements such as beam and column, respectively. After test, we could obtain there were significant temperature lass between higher cross-areas and lower cross-areas. The critical temperature of steel as a criterion is used 538$^{\circ}C$ for column and 593$^{\circ}C$ for beam which is from ASTM E 119 because we don't make provisions as critical temperature by elements. We could consider that the best way of determination of fire protection thickness is using the following multi-regression equation which was deprived from several fire tests using the concept of section factor, FR(column) = 0.17 +5191.49t A/Hp + 40.77t, FR(beam) = 0.25 +6899.31t A/Hp + 32.60t(where, FR means fire resistant time, t means thickness, A means cross-area and Hp means heated parameter).