5. Recommendations for Advancing the Fire Safe Design of Post-tensioned Concrete

As most jurisdictions move towards the adoption of performance-based structural fire design codes it is crucial that the behavior of all structures in fire is scientifically and rationally understood. Post-tensioned (PT) concrete structures are no exception. PT concrete is widely believed to benefit from its ‘inherent fire endurance.’ This belief, particularly for the unbonded configuration, is potentially problematic. It is based on results from standard fire tests performed on simply supported specimens more than five decades ago. The credibility of such tests is debatable. Not only are they unable to reflect the behavior of modern PT concrete construction materials, they cannot capture the true structural behavior of real buildings in real fires. The objective of this book has been to fill in some of the significant knowledge gaps regarding the structural and thermal response of PT concrete structures in fire, particularly the performance of the unbonded prestressing tendons in floor slabs. This knowledge is vital for the creation of defensible computational modelling of unbonded PT structures in fire.