The growing application of mass timber in structural engineering has increased the need for reliable assessment of structural fire performance beyond conventional fire resistance ratings. Current Eurocode provisions are largely based on standard fire curves, such as ISO 834, which consider only the heating phase. However, experimental research has demonstrated that glued laminated timber (glulam) columns can fail during the cooling phase of natural fires, a phenomenon referred to as delayed failure. This behaviour is linked to the combustible nature of timber, its low thermal conductivity causing slow heat penetration, and the rapid degradation of mechanical properties at elevated temperatures. To account for the complete fire exposure, including heating and cooling, the concept of burnout resistance is introduced. This metric evaluates whether a structural member maintains its load-bearing capacity throughout the entire fire event.

This thesis aims to improve the understanding and prediction of delayed failure and burnout resistance of glulam timber columns subjected to natural fire scenarios. Two main objectives are addressed: (i) assessing the capability of non-linear thermo-mechanical finite element modelling in SAFIR to reproduce delayed failure under realistic fire exposures, and (ii) investigating Gaussian Process Classification (GPC) as a surrogate modelling technique for efficient parametric evaluation of burnout resistance.

A combined numerical–surrogate framework is developed. A parametric finite element model is constructed in SAFIR for isolated spruce glulam (GL24h) columns with square cross-sections, four-sided fire exposure and eccentric axial loading. Model predictions are compared with available full-scale experimental data from natural fire tests. The numerical simulations provide binary failure outcomes that serve as input for GPC models, which are enhanced using an active learning strategy to efficiently refine the estimated failure boundary. Surrogate models are developed progressively, from low-dimensional representations to a six-dimensional parameter space incorporating structural, fire and material variables.

The simulations reproduce the structural response during the heating phase with reasonable accuracy. However, predictions of delayed failure during the cooling phase are less reliable, primarily due to limitations in thermal modelling of sustained internal temperatures. Improved agreement is achieved when internal temperature histories better match experimental observations. The results demonstrate that GPC can approximate numerical generated failure boundaries and support efficient exploration of interacting variables, provided that the underlying numerical model is sufficiently accurate. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of accounting for cooling phases and improving the fire resistance assessment glulam timber columns.

This report presents a design study focused on a floating offshore barrier for catching sargassum to protect the coastline of the Yucatan region in Mexico. The research was conducted as part of the multidisciplinary course offered by the Civil Engineering faculty. The study involved five students from diverse disciplines: two hydraulic offshore students, one hydraulic engineering student, one structural engineering student, and one chemical engineering student.

Macaulay's method, which makes use of singularity functions to describe external forces on beam structures, is extended for two-dimensional structures. Furthermore an extension on the method of Macaulay is described for singularities in the rotation and displacement field of the structures, based on the article of Falsone, G. (2002), ‘’The Use of Generalised Functions in the Discontinuous Beam Bending Differential Equations’’ out of the International Journal of Engineering Education. Additionally the modeling of springs is added to the extension of the Macaulay's method.