The occurrence of fires following an earthquake in steel structures is a significant issue in areas of moderate-to-high seismicity. The current seismic design philosophy permits a certain degree of damage during earthquakes, making the structures more vulnerable when exposed to the additional demand of fire loading. Evidence from previous earthquakes has shown high variability in the damage sustained by active and passive fire resistance systems and structural loss due to fires following earthquakes has been observed. This paper provides insight into the effects of the local behavior of reduced beam section (RBS) connections during fire following earthquakes on the global response of steel moment resisting frames. This is achieved through investigating the response of a 9-story steel frame designed for the Los Angeles region using nonlinear finite element analyses. The models are developed and analyzed under representative loading scenarios and the results are presented and their implications discussed.
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