Numerical model for assessing the post-earthquake fire resistance of wood-stud wall

Wood structures are common in housing industry in North America. As wood is a combustible material, fire safety is a concern in these structures. These structures are designed to have adequate fire resistance rating under normal fire exposure. Although post-earthquake fire is quite common, there is no provision in the current codes to safeguard these buildings under such events. The structure after an earthquake may suffer extensive damage, and consequently, it will not withstand a fire event for which it is originally designed. The present article investigates the post-earthquake fire performance of wood stud wall systems and provides an insight on the behaviour of these structures. A numerical model for stability of wood frame walls exposed to fire has been proposed to estimate the fire resistance of these systems. The proposed numerical model has been validated with the experimental study conducted earlier at the National Research Council of Canada on stud walls subjected to standard fire exposure. A parametric study is conducted to identify the effect of post-earthquake damage to fire resistance of a wall system. It is found that the post earthquake fire resistance of a stud wall is reduced considerably even due to a moderate level of seismic damage.