Competitive steel buildings through natural fire safety concepts

The objective of the research project is to establish a more realistic and more credible approach to analysis of structural safety in case of fire that takes account of active fire fighting measures and real fire characteristics. The European Research work was sponsored by the ECSC and entitled the "Natural Fire Safety Concept". It started in June 1994 and ended in December 1998. It has been undertaken by 11 European partners and is co-ordinated by ProfilARBED-Research. Natural Fire Safety Concept Figure. The research has developed a procedure that: takes into account the building characteristics relevant to fire growth: fire scenario, fire load, pyrolysis rate, compartment type, and ventilation conditions (see report of WG3); quantifies the risk of fire start and considers the influence of active fire fighting measures and occupation type; this risk analysis is based on probabilities deduced from databases of real fires from Switzerland, France, Finland, and United Kingdom (see report of WG4); deduces from the previous step design values for the main parameters such as the fire load (see report of WG5); determines the design heating curve as a function of the design fire load that takes implicitly into account the fire risk and therefore the fire fighting measures (see report of WG1); simulates the global behaviour of the structure submitted to the design heating curve and the static load in case of fire; deduces the fire resistance time t n a t f i , d ; this may often be infinite such that the structure is able to support the loads from the beginning to the end of the fire; and verifies the safety of the structure by comparing the fire resistance time t n a t f i , d with the required time depending of the evacuation time and the consequences of the failure. This new concept has been applied to real projects Basket-Ball Hall in Pepinster (Belgium) Luxemburg Airport (Grand-Duchy of Luxemburg). Law Courts of Nantes (France). Building: Museum and Exhibition hall in URBINO (Italy). Office Building in Bilbao (Spain). Office Building "Langenthal", (Switzerland). Schools "Geesseknappchen" in Luxemburg (Grand-Duchy of Luxemburg). This new approach should lead to both financial benefits and better safety guidance. Hence, examples of its use should become more numerous. Less money will be wasted in attempts to guarantee resistance of structures subjected, for instance, to two hours of a wholly unrealistic ISO (or ASTM) fire. Instead, it will be evident that it is much better to identify the active fire fighting measures that provide protection for people, such as detection, alarms, automatic alarm transmission to fire-fighters, smoke exhaust systems, and sprinklers. If the safety of people is ensured in an optimal way, the structure itself can also benefit from those measures that aim to save occupants. Hence, the further costs needed to guarantee its stability in case of fire are strongly reduced and, in some cases, even reduced to zero.