SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY

Group Project #1
High Strength Steel at Elevated Temperatures
Description: The properties of high strength steel at elevated temperatures are investigated and discussed below. Eight technical papers were found through the San Francisco State University digital library, and those reports are also summarized and paraphrased below.

Instructor: Cheng Chen By: Qi Ming Zeng & Joshua Tse

February 18, 2011 Engineering 827

Table of Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................2 High Strength Steel...................................................................................................3 Testing......................................................................................................................4 Figure 1 Testing Device..........................................................................................4 Table 1 Arrangement of Steady- and Transient-State Tests...................................5 Figure 2 Stress-strain curve of high strength steel at different temperatures obtained from transient-state test results..............................................................5 Properties of High Strength Steel @ Elevated Temperatures....................................6 Figure 3 Yield Strength and young's Modulus as a function of Temperature.........6 Figure 4 Ultimate Strength as a function of temperature.......................................7 Fire Resistive Coatings..............................................................................................9 Figure 5 Comparison of temperatures at exposed flange surface........................10 Figure 6 Comparison of temperature at exposed web surface.............................10 References..............................................................................................................11
References

Introduction
High strength steel is used throughout the world, whether for residential or high-rise commercial buildings, it is widely held that high strength steel is one of the best options when strength to weight ratio is considered. This paper will address a specific type of steel, high strength structural steel. This type of steel will be examined under elevated temperatures and the properties under this condition are discussed below. Because of the high probability of fire hazards, it is important to research this topic to better our understanding of what happens to high strength structural steel when it is subjected elevated temperatures. Better understanding should allow designers and manufacturers to be able to create a better alloy high strength steel or perhaps a better spray-on fire protection product. The goal of all the testing and experimentation is to be able to increase fire resistance to whatever structure is liable to elevated temperatures with high strength steel as one of its main structural components.

High Strength Steel

After sifting through several engineering and material science journal articles at our disposal, our first objective is to give you a brief outline of the differences between mild or regular strength steel and high strength steel. Steel is composed of mainly iron and a small amount of carbon (usually less than 1-2 percent). There are many types of steel: high strength low-alloy, high strength high-alloy, corrosion resistant steel, etc. With regular steel being used today, the yield stress typically falls between 36 - 50ksi and tensile stress falling anywhere from 50-100ksi depending on the grade of steel you purchase. High strength steel differs from regular steel in that it contains amounts of other elements that change the chemical properties of the steel. In addition to containing carbon, additional alloying agents such as columbium, vanadium, chromium, silicon, copper, and nickel are used. Low alloy and high alloy steel is used to describe steels for which the total of all alloying elements does not exceed five percent of the total composition of the steel. It is to be noted that according to McCormacs Structural Steel Design textbook, melting scrap steel produces higher strength steels. The reason for this is that the impurities that were present in the initial casting of the steel alloy are removed and thus you receive a higher strength material. The industry has been utilizing this method for some time now. Though the different yield strengths and moduli of elasticity may vary depending on the grade of steel that you have, their fire resistive abilities are similar.

Testing
Testing of High strength steel beginsby rapidly heating and quenching in a cooling bath; the plate is then reheated and slowly cooled down, which provides the steel with its high strength characteristics. () Below is a picture of the testing device.

Figure 1 Testing Device

The testing machine used in this particular study was an MTS 810 Universal testing machine of 100 KNcapacities. The heating device used was an MTS Model 653 high temperature furnace with a maximum temperature of 1,400o C, as shown in the above Fig. 1; the furnace is control by an MTS model 409.83 temperature controller. An MTS Model 632.53F-11 axial extensometer was used to measure the strain of the central region of the specimens.

Table 1 Arrangement of Steady- and Transient-State Tests

A total of 57 tests were conducted, 41 steady- state and 16 transient state tests in the study and the arrangement of the tests is shown above in table 1. () In the steady state test, the specimen was heated up with a constant temperature then loaded with a constant tensile loading rate of 0.2mm/min until the specimen fails. The study finds that the strain rate obtained from the extensometer was about 0.006/min, which satisfies the ASTM Standard E 21-92 a range of 0.005 0.002/min. () As in the Transient State Test, the specimen was also under a constant tensile loading but the temperature was raising in an interval of 100o C to 1,000oC. In the Transient State Test, the ultimate strength of the specimen was defined as the point at which the strain kept increasing at a given temperature. According to Chen, J there is two reasons for the temperature to rise in an interval. First, there is a rapid loss of strength for the specimen and the machine could not follow the quick load drop under load control; second, you need the strain data for different temperatures in order to crate the stress strain curves. ()

Figure 2 Stress-strain curve of high strength steel at different temperatures obtained from transient-state test results

Properties of High Strength Steel @ Elevated Temperatures

According to research done by Ju Chen, Ben Young, and Brian Uy, a paper that they have published through ASCE called Behavior of High Strength Structural Steel at Elevated Temperatures finds that their proportion of reduction of yield strength and the modulus of elasticity decay proportionally to each other. In figure 1 and 2, we can see that we see a continuous reduction of the both the yield strength and youngs modulus as the temperature increases.

Figure 3 Yield Strength and young's Modulus as a function of Temperature

These tests have been conducted using steady-state and transient testing methods. The ratios, which are recorded strengths and moduli over their respective nominal values, are indicated in the Y-Axis. As the temperature is increased in the testing furnace, the ratios decay steadily until around five hundred to six hundred degrees, where at that time we see a more negative slope indicating a heavy loss of the steel members ability to undergo stress before plastic deformation. This characteristic of the stress-strain curve follows our initial train of though. Intuitively, as the internal furnace temperature increases, the characteristics of the steel property are bound to decrease. The bonds that bind the elements together slowly weaken due to the increased temperature and at some point you get a molten or major deformation in the steel section. We can also note the significant drop-off of yield strength for both high strength and regular steel when 500*C is approached. The can only postulate the reason for this; the bonds holding the molecules present break start to break at a certain range of temperature. At roughly 900*C, both our yield strength and Youngs modulus are very close and approach zero rendering the steel section unfit for any tension, compression, or axial forces. The ultimate load capacity as a function of the

temperature holds similar properties graphically to the stress-strain curves for high strength steel and mild steel. The ultimate strength for high strength steel follows the same characteristics of the stress-strain curve of high strength steel.

Figure 4 Ultimate Strength as a function of temperature

As we can see in figure 3, we have a steady level of strength until about 300*C. At 300*C we begin to see a dramatic decline in the strength capacity of the high strength steel section. Finally, at about 950*C, the graph approaches zero and the steel section is not able to resist any load capacity. Both my partner and I agree that further tests need to be developed in order to make an accurate estimate as to why there is a discrepancy of roughly 100 MPaarises between steady-state and transient tests, though that factor is not of major importance to this paper. A quick note regarding the change in thicknesses of the steel sections that were tested; in a research paper called Mechanical properties of cold-formed steel at elevated temperatures, Kankanamge and Mahendran found evidence that while all the information we presented about yield strength, youngs modulus and ultimate strength correspond with their own tests. Kankanamge and Mahendran emphasized that during the tests, the steel sections did not change thicknesses. Their test specimens (coupon test sized material), changed in length, but did not change in thickness. Though, this does not change the tune of our initial findings, as the material properties described above do not change and are not affected by steel thickness. Now that weve discussed a few of the most important factors when elevated temperatures are concerned with high strength steel, our next goal was to find the different properties of that affect steel or that are affected by steel under elevated temperatures. In Creep behavior of high-strength low-alloy steel at elevated temperatures engineers from the University of Rijeka, Croatia examine the behavior of highstrength low-alloy (ASTM A618) steel under elevated temperatures. After several tests, it was determined that A618 which is a high-strength steel exhibited high resistance to creep at temperatures of 400*C until stresses reached a level of one

half the .2% offset yield strength. For temperatures of 500 600C, only a low stress level can be applied or you get high levels of strain. Looking at several graphs of their tests1, loads are applied to the specimen (e.g. 7.75 kN @400 C constant, 2.33 kN 600*C constant) and the strain versus time graphs are output. The outputs show the amount of strain in percentage that is achieved when a constant temperature is reached as a function of the time in minutes. From the graphs, the authors of the articles conclusion are verified. We see that as each experiment was carried out, each time with a higher temperature than the previous test, there was a gradual rise in the strain that was seen from the steel sections. For temperatures of 400*C, there was actually little or no change as time increased, the temperature was not high enough to effect any change in the physical property of the steel section even as time increased. For constant temperature of 500*C, we saw a linear positive slope at 3.71 kN load application to the steel section. Lastly, there was a 600*C temperature applied to the steel section, although even with a relatively small load (2.33 kN) we saw an exponential growth of strain at a appreciably small change in time. These tests concur with the properties of steel stated above. As the temperature increases, we see a gradual decrease in strength and structural properties of high-strength steel.

1 Graphs can be found in Creep behavior of high-strength low-alloy steel at elevated temperatures in Elsevier Journalavailable at the ScienceDirect website. The figures were not added because of poor image quality. (Check references)

Fire Resistive Coatings

There are always potential problems that arise after the fire resistive coatings has been applied, small cracks are more likely to propagate in the coating during the curing period and improper installation. As a result the steel column is left partially exposed, which might cause potential vulnerability in the steel column. The intent of this section is to provide information on the impact of the temperature rise within the steel column where some parts of the fire resistive coating is missing. There are several variables that could have significant effect on fire resistance of the steel member. The area of the missing protection and the size of the column are found to have significant impacts on the fire resistance of the steel column regardless of the thickness of the fire protection. According to Ryder the area of the missing protection seems to be the essential factor as the temperature rise. The standard test for the fire resistance of structural members is known as the ASTM E119 test, which provides for a furnace test of structural members and a failure criterion given by certain temperature in the steel member. ()The ASTM E119 test is performed just after the spray coating is applied. According to Ryder, there is a four percent loss of protection resulting in a fifteen percent reduction in fire resistance for one hour rated andforty percent reduction in fire resistance for two hour rated for a W 10 X 49 column. The conclusion of Ryders study found that the reduction in fire resistance in bigger columns was not as severe; for example, A W 14 X 233 column indicated only fifteen percent reduction in fire resistance with the loss of four percent of protection during the two hour exposure.()Comparing the reduction in fire resistance of the W 10 X 49 to the W 14 X 233, we can see that the W 14 X 233 experienced less reduction despite the fact that a four percent of reduce of coating in the W 14 X 233 has a larger area. Thus the massiveness of the column appears to be an important factor in assessing the temperature rise of the column.

Figure 5 Comparison of temperatures at exposed flange surface

Figure 6 Comparison of temperature at exposed web surface

From figure 5 we can see that initially, the temperature of the exposed flange surface seems to be a function of the missing protection area, yet as the exposed time increases we see that it is a function of exposed time; looking at the 1.5 hours in the graph we can see that the graphs of different missing area converges. Looking at figure 10 similar results is obtained for the web exposure. This should be expected since the flange and the web have identical thermal conditions at the surface. The results indicate that the fire resistance of steel columns can be very sensitive. It seems that the current evaluation methods for fire resistance is ambiguous because we believe that in practice, the location of the exposure might have a somewhat significant influence on the failure time due to differing thermal conditions at different points on the surface of the steel column.

References
Brnic, J., Turkalj, G., Canadija, D., & Lanc, D. (2008). Creep behavoir of high-strength lowalloy steel at elevated temperatures. Materials Science and Engineering A, 23-27. Chen,J. , Young, B. & Uy, B. (December 2006). Behavior of high strength structural steel at elevated temperatures. Journal of Structural Engineering, V.132(No. 12), P.1948-54. Croxon, J. (2010, December 4). ehow. Retrieved February 9, 2011, from www.ehow.com: http://www.ehow.com/list_7449015_a36-steel-properties-high-temperatures.html Dwaikat, Kodur, Quiel, & Garlock. (2010). Experimental behavoir of steel beam-columns subjected to fire-induced thermal gradients. Journal of Constructional Steel Research, 30-38. Key to Metals. (n/a, n/a n/a). keytometals. Retrieved February 10, 2011, from www.keytometals.com: http://www.keytometals.com/Articles/Art48.htm Li, G. Q., Jiang, S. C., Yin, Y. Z., & Li, M. F. (2003). Experimental Studies on the Properties of Constructional Steel at Elevated Temperatures. Journal of Structural Engineering (ASCE), 1717-1721. NIST (National institute of Standards and Technology. (2005). Mechanical Properties of Structural Steels. U.S. Department of Commerce.

Ryder,N.L, Wolin, S.D., & Mike, J.A. (2002). An Ivestigation of the Reduction in Fire Resistance of Steel Columns Caused by Loss of Spray-Applied Fire Protection. Journal of Protection Engineering. Toh, W. S., Tan, K. H., & Fung, T. C. (2000). Compressive Resistance of Steel Columns in Fire. Journal of Structural Engineering, 398-404.