Thanks to significant world-wide research activity directed at understanding and predicting structural behavior at elevated temperatures, analytical methods are available to support a rational, performance-based approach to the structural analysis and design of buildings for fire conditions. To use these analytical methods effectively, structural engineers need technical guidance on reliable and appropriate approaches for dealing with a variety of factors, such as the effect of fire protection, temperature-dependent thermal and structural properties, elastic and inelastic behavior of structural members and frames, and the thermal and structural response of typical framing connections. This paper presents a framework intended to (ⅰ) describe performance-based structural analysis and design for fire conditions as a process and (ⅱ) facilitate knowledge transfer from fire protection engineering to structural engineering research and practice, defined here as fire-robust structural design process. The design framework is presented as a set of flowcharts that identifies both a functional approach and the informational needs associated with incorporating structural fire safety into the structural design process. This paper also discusses a prototype information management system (IMS) based on the design framework. Currently, the mechanisms for identifying possible resources to fulfill fire-related informational needs are generally organized for the convenience of the fire research community. Identification of resources that provide appropriate information for fire-robust structural engineering, such as laboratory fire test results, parametric studies of analytical methods, and other sources of guidance, is often difficult because these resources are rarely organized and presented for the benefit of structural engineers. To begin to resolve this problem, the proposed IMS addresses the critical challenge of organizing and presenting the available knowledge and data in a format that is consistent with the perspective and informational needs of the structural engineer. A prototype version of the system was implemented using Microsoft EXCEL as a software platform.
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