Innovative Design of Fire Doors: Computational Modeling and Experimental Validation Luciano Moro*, Francesco De Bona, Alessandro Gasparetto and Jelena Srnec Novak, DPIA, Universita ` degli Studi di Udine, Via delle Scienze 206, 33100 Udine, Italy Paolo Boscariol, DTG, Universita ` degli Studi di Padova, Stradella S. Nicola 3, 36100 Vicenza, Italy Received: 13 September 2016/Accepted: 5 May 2017 Abstract. Usually the design of fire doors is carried out to fulfil thermal require- ments only, whereas also thermal distortion could significantly affect the safety behavior of the door. Indeed, the door tends to bend away from its supporting frame due to a non-uniform temperature distribution, which could lead to flame and smoke propagation. In this work an innovative design scheme is proposed, where the mechanical response of the door is enhanced without affecting its insulating proper- ties. This improvement is achieved by changing the disposition of the constitutive ele- ments (insulating material and structural plates). The behavior of a conventional and of an innovative door during a fire test was simulated with three-dimensional (3D) finite element models. A non-linear thermo-mechanical transient analysis was per- formed as well. The numerical results were validated with an experimental campaign made on true scale specimens, where the doors were heated by a furnace reaching a maximum temperature of 950°C. The temperature distribution was measured with several thermocouples and an infrared camera, whereas displacements were moni- tored with a laser sensor. It was observed that, while temperatures on the unexposed surface were around 120°C in both cases, the maximum out-of-plane displacement measured in the innovative door was 3 times smaller than that of the conventional configuration. Keywords: Fire door design, Finite element modeling, Fire test, Thermo-mechanical analysis, Infrared measurement 1. Introduction Passive fire protection in buildings and ships makes use of several components with specific functions. Fire doors, which are used with the intent of slowing or stopping the fire propagation, are a key element for safety. The design of conven- tional fire doors is based upon well-established methodologies, aimed at optimiz- ing the thermal behavior of the component. Recently, industrially oriented * Correspondence should be addressed to: Luciano Moro, E-mail: luciano.moro@uniud.it Fire Technology, 53, 1833–1846, 2017 Ó 2017 Springer Science+Business Media New York. Manufactured in The United States DOI: 10.1007/s10694-017-0658-y 1 Author's personal copy