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中英文翻译

外文文献:

Designing Against Fire Of Buliding

ABSTRACT:

This paper considers the design of buildings for fire safety. It is found that fire and the associ- ated effects on buildings is significantly different to other forms of loading such as gravity live loads, wind and earthquakes and their respective effects on the building structure. Fire events are derived from the human activities within buildings or from the malfunction of mechanical and electrical equipment provided within buildings to achieve a serviceable environment. It is therefore possible to directly influence the rate of fire starts within buildings by changing human behaviour, improved maintenance and improved design of mechanical and electrical systems. Furthermore, should a fire develops, it is possible to directly influence the resulting fire severity by the incorporation of fire safety systems such as sprinklers and to provide measures within the building to enable safer egress from the building. The ability to influence the rate of fire starts and the resulting fire severity is unique to the consideration of fire within buildings since other loads such as wind and earthquakes are directly a function of nature. The possible approaches for designing a building for fire safety are presented using an example of a multi-storey building constructed over a railway line. The design of both the transfer structure supporting the building over the railway and the levels above the transfer structure are considered in the context of current regulatory requirements. The principles and assumptions associ- ated with various approaches are discussed.

1 INTRODUCTION

Other papers presented in this series consider the design of buildings for gravity loads, wind and earthquakes.The design of buildings against such load effects is to a large extent covered by engineering based standards referenced by the building regulations. This is not the case, to nearly the same extent, in the case of fire. Rather, it is building regulations such as the Building Code of Australia (BCA) that directly specify most of the requirements for fire safety of buildings with reference being made to Standards such as AS3600 or AS4100 for methods for determining the fire resistance of structural elements.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the design of buildings for fire safety from an engineering perspective (as is currently done for other loads such as wind or earthquakes), whilst at the same time,putting such approaches in the context of the current regulatory requirements.At the outset,it needs to be noted that designing a building for fire safety is far more than simply considering the building structure and whether it has sufficient structural adequacy.This is because fires can have a direct influence on occupants via smoke and heat and can grow in size and severity unlike other effects imposed on the building. Notwithstanding these comments, the focus of this paper will be largely on design issues associated with the building structure.

Two situations associated with a building are used for the purpose of discussion. The multi-storey office building shown in Figure 1 is supported by a transfer structure that spans over a set of railway tracks. It is assumed that a wide range of rail traffic utilises these tracks including freight and diesel locomotives. The first situation to be considered from a fire safety perspective is the transfer structure.This is termed Situation 1 and the key questions are: what level of fire resistance is required for this transfer structure and how can this be determined? This situation has been chosen since it clearly falls outside the normal regulatory scope of most build- ing regulations. An engineering solution, rather than a prescriptive one is required. The second fire situation (termed Situation 2) corresponds to a fire within the office levels of the building and is covered by building regulations. This situation is chosen because it will enable a discussion of engineering approaches and how these interface with the building regulations–since both engineering and prescriptive solutions are possible.

2 UNIQUENESS OF FIRE

2.1 Introduction

Wind and earthquakes can be considered to be “natural” phenomena over which designers have no control except perhaps to choose the location of buildings more carefully on the basis of historical records and to design building to resist sufficiently high loads or accelerations for the particular location. Dead and live loads in buildings are the result of gravity. All of these loads are variable and it is possible (although generally unlikely) that the loads may exceed the resistance of the critical structural members resulting in structural failure.

The nature and influence of fires in buildings are quite different to those associated with other“loads” to which a building may be subjected to. The essential differences are described in the following sections.

2.2 Origin of Fire

In most situations (ignoring bush fires), fire originates from human activities within the building or the malfunction of equipment placed within the building to provide a serviceable environment. It follows therefore that it is possible to influence the rate of fire starts by influencing human behaviour, limiting and monitoring human behaviour and improving the design of equipment and its maintenance. This is not the case for the usual loads applied to a building.

2.3 Ability to Influence

Since wind and earthquake are directly functions of nature, it is not possible to influence such events to any extent. One has to anticipate them and design accordingly. It may be possible to influence the level of live load in a building by conducting audits and placing restrictions on contents. However, in the case of a fire start, there are many factors that can be brought to bear to influence the ultimate size of the fire and its effect within the building. It is known that occupants within a building will often detect a fire and deal with it before it reaches a sig- nificant size. It is estimated that less than one fire in five (Favre, 1996) results in a call to the fire brigade and for fires reported to the fire brigade, the majority will be limited to the room of fire origin. In oc- cupied spaces, olfactory cues (smell) provide powerful evidence of the presence of even a small fire. The addition of a functional smoke detection system will further improve the likelihood of detection and of action being taken by the occupants.

Fire fighting equipment, such as extinguishers and hose reels, is generally provided within buildings for the use of occupants and many organisations provide training for staff in respect of the use of such equipment.

The growth of a fire can also be limited by automatic extinguishing systems such as sprinklers, which can be designed to have high levels of effectiveness.Fires can also be limited by the fire brigade depending on the size and location of the fire at the time of arrival.

2.4 Effects of Fire

The structural elements in the vicinity of the fire will experience the effects of heat. The temperatures within the structural elements will increase with time of exposure to the fire, the rate of temperature rise being dictated by the thermal resistance of the structural element and the severity of the fire. The increase in temperatures within a member will result in both thermal expansion and,eventually,a reduction in the structural resistance of the member. Differential thermal expansion will lead to bowing of a member. Significant axial expansion will be accommodated in steel members by either overall or local buckling or yielding of local- ised regions. These effects will be detrimental for columns but for beams forming part of a floor system may assist in the development of other load resisting mechanisms (see Section 4.3.5).

With the exception of the development of forces due to restraint of thermal expansion, fire does not impose loads on the structure but rather reduces stiffness and strength. Such effects are not instantaneous but are a function of time and this is different to the effects of loads such as earthquake and wind that are more or less instantaneous.

Heating effects associated with a fire will not be significant or the rate of loss of capacity will be slowed if:

(a) the fire is extinguished (e.g. an effective sprinkler system)

(b) the fire is of insufficient severity – insufficient fuel, and/or

(c)the structural elements have sufficient thermal mass and/or insulation to slow the rise in internal temperature

Fire protection measures such as providing sufficient axis distance and dimensions for concrete elements, and sufficient insulation thickness for steel elements are examples of (c). These are illustrated in Figure 2.

The two situations described in the introduction are now considered.

3 FIRE WITHIN BUILDINGS

3.1 Fire Safety Considerations

The implications of fire within the occupied parts of the office building (Figure 1) (Situation 2) are now considered. Fire statistics for office buildings show that about one fatality is expected in an office building for every 1000 fires reported to the fire brigade. This is an order of magnitude less than the fatality rate associated with apartment buildings. More than two thirds of fires occur during occupied hours and this is due to the greater human activity and the greater use of services within the building. It is twice as likely that a fire that commences out of normal working hours will extend beyond the enclosure of fire origin.

A relatively small fire can generate large quantities of smoke within the floor of fire origin. If the floor is of open-plan construction with few partitions, the presence of a fire during normal occupied hours is almost certain to be detected through the observation of smoke on the floor. The presence of full height partitions across the floor will slow the spread of smoke and possibly also the speed at which the occupants detect the fire. Any measures aimed at improving housekeeping, fire awareness and fire response will be beneficial in reducing the likelihood of major fires during occupied hours.

For multi-storey buildings, smoke detection systems and alarms are often provided to give “automatic” detection and warning to the occupants. An alarm signal is also transmitted to the fire brigade.

Should the fire not be able to be controlled by the occupants on the fire floor, they will need to leave the floor of fire origin via the stairs. Stair enclosures may be designed to be fire-resistant but this may not be sufficient to keep the smoke out of the stairs. Many buildings incorporate stair pressurisation systems whereby positive airflow is introduced into the stairs upon detection of smoke within the building. However, this increases the forces required to open the stair doors and makes it increasingly difficult to access the stairs. It is quite likely that excessive door opening forces will exist(Fazio et al,2006)

From a fire perspective, it is common to consider that a building consists of enclosures formed by the presence of walls and floors.An enclosure that has sufficiently fire-resistant boundaries (i.e. walls and floors) is considered to constitute a fire compartment and to be capable of limiting the spread of fire to an adjacent compartment. However, the ability of such boundaries to restrict the spread of fire can be severely limited by the need to provide natural lighting (windows)and access openings between the adjacent compartments (doors and stairs). Fire spread via the external openings (windows) is a distinct possibility given a fully developed fire. Limit- ing the window sizes and geometry can reduce but not eliminate the possibility of vertical fire spread.

By far the most effective measure in limiting fire spread, other than the presence of occupants, is an effective sprinkler system that delivers water to a growing fire rapidly reducing the heat being generated and virtually extinguishing it.

3.2 Estimating Fire Severity

In the absence of measures to extinguish developing fires, or should such systems fail; severe fires can develop within buildings.

In fire engineering literature, the term “fire load” refers to the quantity of combustibles within an enclosure and not the loads (forces) applied to the structure during a fire. Similarly, fire load density refers to the quantity of fuel per unit area. It is normally expressed in terms of MJ/m2 or kg/m2 of wood equivalent. Surveys of combustibles for various occupancies (i.e offices, retail, hospitals, warehouses, etc)have been undertaken and a good summary of the available data is given in FCRC (1999). As would be expected, the fire load density is highly variable. Publications such as the International Fire Engineering Guidelines (2005) give fire load data in terms of the mean and 80th percentile.The latter level of fire load density is sometimes taken as the characteristic fire load density and is sometimes taken as being distributed according to a Gumbel distribution (Schleich et al, 1999).

The rate at which heat is released within an enclosure is termed the heat release rate (HRR) and normally expressed in megawatts (MW). The application of sufficient heat to a combustible material results in the generation of gases some of which are combustible. This process is called pyrolisation.

Upon coming into contact with sufficient oxygen these gases ignite generating heat. The rate of burning(and therefore of heat generation) is therefore dependent on the flow of air to the gases generated by the pyrolising fuel.This flow is influenced by the shape of the enclosure (aspect ratio), and the position and size of any potential openings. It is found from experiments with single openings in approximately cubic enclosures that the rate of burning is directly proportional to A h where A is the area of the opening and h is the opening height. It is known that for deep enclosures with single openings that burning will occur initially closest to the opening moving back into the enclosure once the fuel closest to the opening is consumed (Thomas et al, 2005). Significant temperature variations throughout such enclosures can be expected.

The use of the word ‘opening’ in relation to real building enclosures refers to any openings present around the walls including doors that are left open and any windows containing non fire-resistant glass.It is presumed that such glass breaks in the event of development of a significant fire. If the windows could be prevented from breaking and other sources of air to the enclosure limited, then the fire would be prevented from becoming a severe fire.

Various methods have been developed for determining the potential severity of a fire within an enclosure.These are described in SFPE (2004). The predictions of these methods are variable and are mostly based on estimating a representative heat release rate (HRR) and the proportion of total fuel ς likely to be consumed during the primary burning stage (Figure 4). Further studies of enclosure fires are required to assist with the development of improved models, as the behaviour is very complex.

3.3 Role of the Building Structure

If the design objectives are to provide an adequate level of safety for the occupants and protection of adjacent properties from damage, then the structural adequacy of the building in fire need only be sufficient to allow the occupants to exit the building and for the building to ultimately deform in a way that does not lead to damage or fire spread to a building located on an adjacent site.These objectives are those associated with most building regulations including the Building Code of Australia (BCA). There could be other objectives including protection of the building against significant damage. In considering these various objectives, the following should be taken into account when considering the fire resistance of the building structure.

3.3.1 Non-Structural Consequences

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