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In this eNews you will discover a interesting example of how Scia Engineer has been used by the Consulting Engineers ILF to work out the research of fire resistance of tunnels, as project we present the extension of an industrial precast structure by Structo nv and finally, our support department wants to share the different ways of transferring an Allplan model to Scia Engineer. Enjoy reading!

Traffic tunnels designed with Scia Engineer to withstand fire

The consulting engineers ILF with headquarters in Innsbruck (Austria) and 30 offices worldwide (Europe, USA, Asia, see www.ilf.com) has a dedicated team for designing and checking tunnels.

Dr. Dipl. Ing. Klaus Schmid is leading this work and has published a research paper together with the German Federal Ministry of Traffic (Bundesanstalt für Strassenverkehr / BASt) on the safety design of tunnels (research project #15.428).

Scia Engineer has been extensively used to work out this research at an early stage of the release of the new function "fire check of concrete".

Dr. K. Schmid explains: “A tunnel cross section is modelled with beam members, on which a temperature-distance curve is applied to simulate the effects of a fire. The high temperatures across the tunnel walls decrease the strength resistance significantly; in Scia Engineer a simplified layered approach is implemented to model the material behaviour. Finally the remaining strength of the tunnel section is calculated with due account of concrete cracking and reduced material strength.”

A deeper understanding of fire resistance of tunnels is necessary to decide on evacuation and repair strategies. ILF initiated the development at Scia on fire safety; in the Euronorm EN 1992-1-2 fire resistance for reinforced and pre-stressed concrete is generally being imposed.

Moving limits is the claim of Scia; offering the advanced feature of fire simulation in a general purpose engineering software is certainly moving limits.

Structo nv – Extension Volvo Cars Gent (B)

About Structo nv
The company was set up in 1948 and is a specialist in prefabrication, from the preliminary study up to and included the assembly. Structo nv is actively involved at the basis of many buildings, industrial and other, as well as in the field of infrastructure works.

Description of the building
It regards an extension of an existing building with a ground surface of 24 m by 54 m and with a height of 20 m. It is a typical industrial structure on a raster of 12 by 18 m, with an intermediate floor at a height of 8m. This construction was built on against an existing building with a similar construction. On the floor was required a mobile load of 1 ton per square meter. For the intermediate floor was opted for the use of TT-elements with a concrete pressure layer of 120 mm. Each element has a length of 6 m and weighs 5.5 ton. This self-bearing floor is supported through secondary level beams of 18 m long, with a height of 1.60 m and a weight of 24 ton each.

Since this construction has been coupled to an existing building, some of these beams are lying in an oversailing position. The secondary floor beams are supported through single primary girders.

Technical tour de force
The large difficulty of this assignment was the connection of this new annex to the existing building. This implied the use of expansion bearings and heavy counterbracing. The oversailing beams of the prestressed concrete formed another obstacle. Where compressive stress was created at the bottom of the beam, also occurred more pressure. Conversely, on top of the beam, a large tensile stress occurred as a result of the negative moment.

Scia Engineer
With Scia Engineer we were able to cope in a fast and accurate way with every modification we encountered. An omitted point of support, a range of columns that shifted one metre… every possible situation could be adapted in a flash. The programme recalculated the new situation and the new results were available at once!

Transfer of general 3D volumes to Scia Engineer

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