A numerical study on the response of steel beams to fire and explosion is presented in this paper. First, a unified computing model, which can be used to simulate the behaviour of beams under four loading scenarios that involve fire and explosion or impact, is constructed. The proposed technique allows complete transparency of the influence of the various parameters on the structural behaviour. Second, the effects of load level on critical temperature are analyzed for various static and explosion load ratios. Two cases of explosion and fire loading sequences are compared, it is shown that the critical temperature of the beam subjected to fire followed by an explosion is lower than that of the beam subjected to an explosion followed by fire. The influence of temperature on the p–i diagram is investigated, an iso-damage surface is introduced to distinguish safe and unsafe regions. Third, the limiting temperature criteria are further examined. That is, the first and second limiting temperatures can be determined when the dimensional catenary force is equal to zero or to one, which corresponds to the bending or stretching plastic hinge, respectively.
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