2. Experimental details
Fire has a significant impact on materials. A building fire can reach 850 oC in less than 30 min, and peak at around 1000 oC within 2 h. A petrochemical fire can reach 900 oC within the first
5 min and peak at around 1100 oC. Tunnel fires have similar heat- ing rate to petrochemical fires but can reach 1350 oC in the first hour [16]. Design codes such as ISO 834 [27] and AS 1530 [28] provide standard fire curves for testing of materials though a real fire can be different in different situations because the parameters like combustibility of the material, location, humidity and air flow are not likely to be the same in any two fires.