Abstract
Traditionally, the facades' design buildings where once only focused on architectural or aesthetic purposes (in addition, of course, of whether protective issues). Nowadays, thanks to the technological development of the construction works and the use of new types of materials, the facades' design should also address fire safety related aspects.In Europe and especially in Italy – where the types of building facades are built with windows of small surface and natural stone coverings – the green building/sustainability movement has resulted in the development of new concepts in facade or curtain wall design that intended to enhance the energy efficiency of building facades. These new building surfaces are covered by extensive panelling fitted with insulating materials or by wide glass surfaces, capable of carry out the most diverse purposes including, just to name a few: energy reduction, climate comfort, recovery of electricity through photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight into electricity, large space for advertising purpose.One of the main fire safety goal for a building design is to restrict the vertical fire spread so that the smoke and flames are limited to the fire origin floor. The new building facade and curtain wall topologies could overwhelms concerns for fire safety, therefore the Italian National fire service has released a Fire Code Guideline in order to address the fire safety design for an high rise building facade. This paper aims to show the guideline contents and the related fire safety facades concerns.
Highlights
This paper aims to show the guideline contents and the related fire safety façades concerns
Flames and hot gases go out from the fire compartment via cavities of wall/slabs openings and, through any vertical cavity of the façade, the fire propagates within the gaps that may exist between the head of the slabs and the facade, involving other compartments which belong to the same building and that initially were not affected by the fire, whether they grow in horizontal and vertical direction
Figure shows the main mechanisms of façade fire spread: 1) fire spreads throw the hollow space between the slabs and the internal façade side ; 2) fire spreads within the façade’ cavity; 3) fire spreads from façade windows
Summary
Fire safety façades’ major problems can be summarized as follows: – Generally building horizontal fire resistant elements – slabs – and vertical elements – fire walls –, for both structural and aesthetic requirements, do not lay perpendicular to the building façade; in this case, once the façade is attacked by a fire, it can be a suitable way for fire spread to one or more building compartments; – For buildings with facades having a ventilating function of air through natural or forced circulation within vertical cavity, the risk of fire spread to other zones of the construction work is very high; – The materials and components that constitute the facade or the outer building coating, could propagate a fire; – For firefighters or rescue personnel is often very difficult to carry out rescue and fighting operation through the facade, especially for high-rise buildings; – For an outside observer, it is difficult, especially in the case of double-wall facades, recognize an outbreak of a fire; – In case of fire the final collapse of the facade (panels, profiles, glasses) can be a source of danger to the exodus of occupants and rescue workers. As a direct consequence of a fire, it must be taken into account the risk related to the falling of façade components or pieces that could collapse during the fire exposure, such as fragile parts like glass elements. This risk could affect both the escape of the building occupants and the rescue team actions. The second façade fire safety requirement – safety goal B in the previous section – concerns the choice of the solutions that could prevent the risk of falling glass parts or pieces of other façade fragile objects in case of fire. The mitigation of façade falling parts is mainly linked to the identification of all those measures capable to ensure the protection of the building safety escape routes, even those used by rescue teams and firefighters
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