Hi Christopher,
i cannot give you a guide to decide, if the truss sustained or not. But usually the truss is not damaged if there is no sign of fire obvious on its surface and if it has no sign of irreversible deformations. The fire has to heat the truss up to about 200 °C/ 390 °F to decrease the properties, it has got by cold forming. If that happened, you would see the signs on the surface of the truss or at least some deformations. In many cases the roof trusses are not harmed by fire occurance.
Regards
Alfred Mueller
International welding engineer
University of applied sciences, Karlsruhe, Germany
Von: Christopher Banbury [mailto:cbanbury@arkengineering.net]
Gesendet: Montag, 29. Oktober 2007 20:55
An: seaint@seaint.org
Betreff: cold form steel truss fire damage
I have been asked to determine if a cold form steel roof truss has sustained fire damage. Visually the truss appears to be fine with no evidence of high heat except for smoke and fire retardant spray by the fire department.
Can someone direct me to a guide on the assessment of cold form steel trusses for fire damage?
Thanks in advance.
Christopher Banbury, PE
President
Ark Engineering, Inc.
Phone: (352) 754-2424
Fax: (352) 754-2412
