Mechanical properties of lightweight concrete after fire exposure

The paper presents an experimental research project that focused on analysing the short-term residual mechanical properties of lightweight concrete after exposure to temperatures of up to 600 °C and the effects of the short-term residual mechanical properties on the post-fire loadbearing capacity of different concrete sections. The experimental programme was conducted on four different concrete mixes by determining the mechanical properties immediately after cooling and up to 96 h after cooling. The following properties were investigated: compressive strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity and stress-strain curves. The results show that the compressive strength undergoes an additional reduction in comparison to the initial residual strength (0 h property) of up to 20 % in the reference time period. A numerical study is presented at the end of the paper in order to quantify the effects of the short-term strength reduction on the axial loadbearing capacity of slender and stocky concrete columns.