Tests of load-bearing slender reinforced concrete walls in fire

Eighteen large-scale slender reinforced Concrete walls were tested under st andard fire conditions. The test conditions included different height-to-th ickness ratios, reinforcement covers, concrete strengths and mixture propor tions, and varying levels of eccentric inplane load. Eight walls, simply su pported along two short edges, were tested under combined eccentric inplane and lateral loads to investigate inplane load capacity! Another eight wall s, also simply supported along two short edges, were tested under lateral l oad only to investigate spalling of concrete and thermal bowing. Two walls, simply supported on three edges (two short and one long), were tested unde r lateral load to investigate spalling in concrete walls without flexural c racking. The results also show that centrally reinforced walls perform bett er than doubly reinforced walls, and that concrete strength has little infl uence on the performance of load-bearing slender walls in fire. Furthermore , the results show that flexural cracking on the fire-exposed surface reduc es the tendency for spalling of concrete.