New Approaches to Fire Safety Design

A revolution has been taking places as fire safety engineering design strives to develop a distinctive
identity it own right. The risk based concepts and methods that have emerged tend to ask just as
many questions as they answer.

Practice has yet to establish a level of consistency from one practitioner to another. In particular, risk
judgments are subjective, influenced by circumstance and knowledge, and therefore need to be as fully
informed as possible. It is now more essential than in the past to have a deeper and broader
understanding of product behavior in fire, especially as confidence in the assessed risks depend
fundamentally on the products delivering the presumed performance.

The important of performance

Under a risk-based regime, product reliability and dependability become relatively more important than
in the past. It is unsatisfactory to reply on single prescriptive furnace tests, or only a handful of tests
which are limited in range and scope. Selective reference to an individual research paper, unsupported
by reference to others, is also equally as inadequate. That cannot give the breadth of understanding that
is necessary. Risk-based, individualistic design should be guarded about undue generalization.

If behavior in real fire conditions is the key consideration, then other criteria than those recorded in
prescriptive tests should be evaluated. The essential characteristics of the product’s underlying
technology are important, together with an evaluated. The essential characteristics of the product’s
underlying technology are important, together with an evaluation of sensitivity to fire, it is the
mechanism of changes in fire that matters fundamentally. And an evaluation of mechanism should
underpin predictions of likely behavior. This means looking at the fullest possible test record, the
product’s history of performance and the level of control provides real fire situations different fire-
resistance glass products cannot be taken to be the same.

Each fire-resistance glass has its own characteristic risk profile- a combination of the quality of the
underlying technology, manufacturing control, manufacture quality commitment, product make up and
extent of testing – which can only be judged by evaluating failure mechanisms and products robustness
from the depth and breadth of the individual products test profile.

The anticipated fire scenario- the projected maximum temperature, the rate of temperature rise, the
fire load and duration of the fire –are important since some technology used for fire resistant glass are
not robust enough to perform reliably and consistently with the same degree of confidence in all fire
conditions. Each fire resistant glass is, in effect, different. Some of the technologies in particular, e.g
toughened glass, are inherently more unreliable and potentially more variable than others in fire,
considerations that should influence the appropriate fire scenarios for their safe use.
Prescriptive regulation

Authorities throughout the developed world recognize the critical important of regulation to secure
basic fire safety standards in buildings. Fire presents major hazards for occupants and fire fighting,
significant threats to property, and clear risk to community wellbeing and wealth. Fire is notoriously
destructive and unpredictable and not naturally subject to the rigours of scientific control. It possesses
infinite capacity to surprise and can develop in ways not entirely anticipated when original design
assumptions are made. The risk assessment may not, therefore, be straightforward.

The traditional route to fire safety regulation is by prescription, i.e. handed down rules and guidance
that are substantially based on experience and history. Prescription has served fire safety well, and
continues to do so. It offer the comfort of familiarity, consistency, and the application of traditional
custom ad practice, building on what has gone before, in effect, by a process of gradual evolutionary
step-step improvement. Prescription is relatively easy to apply and follow, and generally calls for little
interpretation.

There is an element of faith is the prescriptive approach that guidelines and recommendations have
worked and that they will continue to do so, even of the built environment changes. It is evident that
prescription applies more suitably to the common building situations and to more traditional building
and architectural styles. Critics would say that prescription is too rigid, too unforgiving of flexible design
and too hidebound by history. Supporters point to a successful record, reflected in falling fire deaths,
consistency of application and the security of what has been seen to work in the past. It also has the
advantage of being transparent.

Risk- based design

Advocates for prescription question the risk to fire safety standards if replaced by individual decision
making in what could become a design free for all. There is a concern that fire safety might become a
lower priority objective to other more day to day functional and opportunistic objectives, especially
when squeezed by a shrinking budget. Advocates for risk based approaches point to the increasing need
to be flexible in design, and that no two modern buildings are alike.

The style of modern building is most city centers – increasingly larger, taller, more costly, and more
complex with multiple mixed occupancies and a range of functional requirements – calls for a different
approach. Architectural fashion and styles of construction have changed dramatically over the last thirty
years. The widespread use of glass, and the common employment of large glazed areas in single
installations, is testament to that. Prescription based on past experiences may not be the most
appropriate approach to anticipate and accommodate architectural change, especially given the fast
pace of innovation in construction.
There is merit in the risk-based approach. But there are just able question of consistency of application
and openness to public scrutiny, and the approach needs to be based on transparent standards of
technical correctness (but without, as yet, an adequate quality control mechanism). In place of received
wisdom comes an analytical process which should be founded on technically sound principle, using
established facts and relationship between physical parameters. It should ideally be founded on
scientific process and outlook. Practice, however, can drift apart from principle.

Fire Resistance

The fundamental property of fire resistance is not always correctly interpreted. For example, fire always
correctly interpreted. For example, fire resistance should not be seen solely in terms of endurance, i.e
time. Fire resistance for glass, in particular, needs to be evaluated in more specific terms. The concept of
a fire resistance rating for the building as a whole(‘ One size fits all” philosophy) does not strictly apply,
since materials used in the construction have fundamentally different sensitivities to heat and different
deterioration mechanisms. Glass, for example, is sensitive to thermal shock or stress and is therefore
more

Vulnerable to the initial, rapid temperature rise characteristic of natural fires ( Which is not reflected in
the standard furnace test). Fire-resistant glass technologies that can cope with thermal shock such a
special fire-resistant laminates – are there fore likely to be more robust in fire.

Fire resistance in standard definitions is taken to be element of a building, to satisfy defined criteria
evaluated under formalized test conditions, expressed for specific test time. The function of the
standard test is broadly to categorize products for product classification. Performance is classified
according to three main criteria : load bearing capability, integrity ( ability to act as a physics barrier to
hold back fire) and insulation ( an integrity barrier and a shield against all forms of transmitted heat).
There is a big performance difference in particular between insulation and integrity, difference which
carry major implications for use in fire, especially if that fire develops strongly and last several hours.
Presumptions that is also too often taken is that a given time in a fire situation. This performance in
practice under real conditions may be longer or shorter, depending on the circumstances of the fire and
the fire exposure. The characteristics of the individual products are also very significant.

What a test report does not say

A test report is a factual account of what happened on a particular day, in a particular test. It provides a
description of the system and its components as tested. The test report, however says nothing about
the run up to the test, in particular whether the products is representative of normal run of the mill
production, or not. A single test report gives no guarantee that the next test, if repeated, would deliver
the same result. And there is no requirement to place failed test in the public arena. Consistency and
robustness of behavior can only be gauged by the number scope and range of the full test evidence.
A single test is effectively only an indication of tendency and only allows broad categorization into type.
A test does not provide a basis for exercising choice between different fire-resistant glass types, a
products, for example achieving 31 minutes in the test being deemed to be the same as on achieving 42
minutes (when the difference is at least 30 %). Under the conditions of a single test all products are
deemed in effect to be the same but in practice there are differences which could be significant in a fire
if the full risk are to be taken into account. The standard test effectively provides an artificial black
white distinction between those products that have been deemed to have attained a minimum
standard of resistance and those that have not, when in reality the risk evaluations for real fires are
rather shades of grey.

The important of mechanism

The mode of failure in fire should be major part of the risk evaluation. For example, different risks apply
for mechanisms of deterioration that are sudden and catastrophic, and therefore inherently
unpredictable ( E.g. as characteristic of toughened glass), compared with those that are gradual and
progressive (e.g as demonstrated by Pilkington pyrostop and Pilkington pyrodur based on an inorganic
intumescent laminated interlayer). Such stable mechanisms are essentially predictable and controllable,
with a lower risk profile.

Glass, of course is transparent. That means a possibility of high level of transmitted heat which can lead
to high level of smoke generations on the protected, non-fire side by shouldering of common fixtures,
fittings and furnishings, such as floor covering fixture, fitting and furnishings, such as floor coverings.
There is also the risk of fire transfer by secondary ignition. Considering such real fire factors, for
example, leads to a questioning of how a basic integrity glass can effective at 90 minutes or longer. If the
fire has developed for that long, possibly with complete conflagration of one or more compartments,
then radiant heat levels on the nominal protected side of the people and firefighters are likely to be at
high risk, and the fire will have a high chance of spreading by secondary transfer mechanisms.

In real fire situations, a wider risk evaluation needs to take place. High levels of smoke and toxic fumes
can develop from certain types of fire-resistant glass laminates based on substantially organic interlayer.
An integrity only glass might also develop high surface temperatures non-fire sides which are capable of
developing intolerable conditions for escapees, allowing high air temperatures to develop by convection
in the protected space. A glass classified to the new( but seldom used CEN class we can suffer from the
same difficulties. Both heat and smoke in the escape way can be a risk with some type of basic integrity
glass. But, a glass with full insulation function will prevent such development and reduce risk accordingly
to correspondingly low levels.

Such mechanisms are not recorded in standard tests- but they are vital in considering risk in real fire
situations and therefore important in making specification and product selection decisions. Those
decisions are also influenced by the fire safety objective, the hazards of the building and its occupancy,
the assumed design fire scenario and the anticipated potential fire development if chance should take
over.
Conclusion

The risk- based approach to fire safety design needs a new and more appropriate approach in the way
products are evaluated for their fire performance. It also becomes more important for authorities,
regulators, designers, specifies, and even building owners, to take a more critical view of design,
products and building performance this need more focused consideration of products behavior than has
been the case under prescriptive approaches, and approach which is far less reliant on consideration on
only a few prescriptive tests.