Congratulations to CaSE assistant professor Thomas Gernay, whose project “Behavior and Design of Concrete Structures under Natural Fires” was selected by the American Concrete Institute (ACI) Foundation as one of the eight projects to receive funding in 2020.
Gernay will collaborate with co-principal investigator Patrick Bamonte of Politecnico di Milano on the project, which aims to complement the available design methods for concrete structural members exposed to standard fire by developing a method to design for resistance to full burnout under real fires. The novel method will provide enhanced safety and resilience for reinforced and prestressed concrete members because it will capture the effects of fire on the material and structural response throughout the different stages of heating and cooling, including the potential vulnerability to delayed failure. Of straightforward application for design by practitioners, the method is not intended to replace advanced analysis for performance-based assessment, but rather to enable defining a burnout resistance rating in complement to the fire resistance rating in design standards.
Projects were selected for funding by the Concrete Research Council based on their impact to industry, ACI Committee engagement, and collaboration with other funders and organizations.
For more information, visit https://www.acifoundation.org/research/researchprojects.aspx.