Abstract
This manuscript presents tools and data that serve to enable an evaluation of the risk associated with vertical fire spread on buildings. A highly detailed context to cladding fires is described to unveil the complexity and magnitude of the problem and to identify gaps of information. An engineering framework is then developed which delivers required information that fills some of those gaps and that needs to be used towards achieving quantified fire performance. The data itself has been published as a publicly available database, entitled the Cladding Materials Library (www.claddingmaterialslibrary.com.au). This data can be used to support building fire risk assessments or as the basis for more in-depth research into façade fires. This paper presents the context of the data together with the competency framework necessary for upskilling building professionals to have the capacity to implement the engineering framework.
Highlights
The manner in which high-rise building construction has evolved in the last two decades has resulted in the number of very large-scale building fires increasing in a dramatic way
Despite the weaknesses of the information available, what followed these assessments was the immediate removal of façade systems in many countries and widespread review of the existing systems with the objective of identifying systems that represented an unacceptable level of risk
A simple approach is to establish products which would clearly violate the goals defined by the fire safety strategy by concluding that they will lead to fire spread that monotonically increases with scale attaining unacceptable values within the scale of the present tests
Summary
The manner in which high-rise building construction has evolved in the last two decades has resulted in the number of very large-scale building fires increasing in a dramatic way. The lack of quantifiable performance has manifested itself in situations where the outcome of major external fires has not been as tragic In these cases, the level of robustness was sufficient and the fire either did not spread, or if it did spread life safety was still ensured. The layers of pro tection were capable of maintaining life safety with only 16 injuries and no fatalities but the property damage was again unacceptable and led to an insurance claim of 1.22 billion AED (€309 million) being awarded [18] These are two of many examples where similar outcomes were observed but where the façade systems were very similar, the fire spread rates were very different and so were the life safety outcomes [1,19,20]. It is essential to revisit the fundamental processes determining how a façade system supports the desired level of fire safety performance and, as a result, deliver tools that enable engi neers to quantify such performance
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