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MSc Lecture 3A:
Review on Fire Tests
Professor W.K. Chow
Department of Building Services Engineering
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hong Kong, China
17 Sept 2018
MScFDFiretest-2018a.ppt
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(1) Standard fire tests such as BS 476 have
the following parts
Part 3: External fire exposure roof test
t i n g
Part 4:
pd a
Non-combustibility test for materials
s u
Part 5: Ignitability
y
Part 6: lw a propagation index
Fire
A
Part 7: Surface spread of flame tests
Part 8: Fire resistance of elements of
building construction
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Part 11: Heat emission from building
materials
Part 12: Ignitability of products using direct
flame impingement
Part 13: Ignitability of products subjected to
thermal irradiance
Part 14: Rate of flame spread on surface of
products
Part 15: Rate of heat release of products
Part 16: Smoke release (obscuration) of
products
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Part 20: General principles - requirements
for the determination of the fire
resistance of elements of building construction
Part 21: Fire resistance of loadbearing
elements
Part 22: Fire resistance of non-loadbearing
elements
Part 23: Determine contribution provided by
components elements to the fire
resistance of a structure
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Part 24: Fire resistance of elements
penetrated by building services
Part 30: Flat and sloping roof exposed to an
external fire
Part 31: Measuring smoke penetration tho'
door sets and shutters assemblies
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Data acquisition system for Non-
combustibility test
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Surface Spread of Flame Test for Materials
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Software
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ASTM – LIFT Flame Spreading Apparatus
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Fire Propagation Test
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Testing for different stages of a fire:
(Established years ago at golden times of fire
research)
Anything new developed ?
Cone Calorimeter / Single Burning Item (SBI)
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(2) Fire Resistance
BS Glossory:
The ability of an element of building
construction to withstand the effects of fire for
a specified period of time without loss of its fire
separating or load bearing function.
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Code of Practice for
Fire Resisting Construction 1996
Local requirement:
– Code of practice for fire resisting
construction (CoP FRC),
Buildings Department, Hong
Kong (1996)
– Under which every building is
required to have adequate Fire
Resistance Period (FRP)
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Fire Codes now:
New passive Active
code
Code of Practice for Fire Safety in FSI Codes
Buildings April 2012
Prescriptive codes in Hong Kong
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Old codes on passive construction:
MoE Codes MoA Codes FRC Codes
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Common grades are:
– 1-hr FRP
– 2-hr FRP
– 4-hr FRP
Those grades were developed in UK 300
years ago
Based on statistics of fire load
Several factors affecting FRP
Rationale should be fully understood
before making fire design
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There are several types of fire:
– accidental fire
– arson fire
– terrorist attack fire
– natural disaster fire
Fire safety provisions are basically for
accidental fire.
It would cost a lot to provide protection
against arson fire and terrorist attack fire.
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But a fire might be different under various
conditions, more specified definition:
– The ability of an element of building construction
to satisfy for a stated period of time; some or all of
the criteria specified in BS 476 Part 8;
– namely:
resistance to collapse;
resistance to flame penetration; and
resistance to excessive temperature on the
unexposed face.
A temperature time curve has to be used in the
furnace for assessing fire resistance.
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(3) Fire resistance testing
The time/temperature condition for the growth and
development stage in a fire is used for testing the
failure criteria of elements of construction when
exposed to fire.
This is called the standard time/temperature curve
and is given as follows:
Temp/ C
1000
T - To = 345 log (8t + 1)
1 hr 4 hr Time
where To is the ambient air temperature in the test chamber
t is the time in minutes starting from the onset of fire
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All Maximum furnace temperature.
Able to stand 108 hrs, why ?
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Fire Resistance Furnace
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Column furnace Concrete wall panel
showing a steel after test in a
column after test vertical furnace
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Floor Furnace Showing a Timber Floor Collapsing
BRI 2015
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Heating and Stress Applied on Test
Specimen
Vertical separating element Horizontal separating element
Furnace
Direction of applied
heating and pressure
Beam Column
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For any structural element to withstand a fire, it must
have one or all of the following properties:
(1) Stability - ability to carry the load without
collapsing.
(2) Integrity - cracks or perforations will not
develop to allow passage of
smoke and flame from one side to the
other side of the element.
(3) Insulation - ability to prevent the passage of
heat from one face to the other
face of the element.
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For example: the diagrams showing the meaning of fire
resistance for floors, doors and walls are:
Average temperature rised
not more than 139
C
fire fire fire
collapse or excessive passage of flames lack of
insulation
deflection
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collapse or excessive passage of flames lack of
insulation
deflection
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FRP tr
0
Tstand dt Tdt
0
Temperature / °C
FRP tr
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Equal Area Hypothesis
Ingberg’s equal area hypothesis 1928
If the two areas under the temp/time curves are
equal, then they have the same severity
FRP t1
0
Tstand dt T dt
0
Temperature / oC
Tstand = Standard Temperature/Time Curve Time (min)
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A simple number system has been devised
prefixed by the initial FR (standing for fire
resistance), with the first number refers to the
stability period, the second the integrity period
and the third (where used) the insulation
period; with all periods being given in
minutes,
i.e. FR / /
Stability Integrity Insulation
(min) (min) (min)
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The number system can be illustrated by
using the following two examples.
Example 1:
A floor which requires a stability of 30
minutes, and integrity and insulation both of
15 minutes is described as a FR 30/15/15
floor.
(A modified half-hour floor in small houses
under England and Wales building term).
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Example 2:
A door which requires a stability of 30
minutes, integrity of 20 minutes and nil
insulation would be described as a FR 30/20
door. Note that no number is used to describe
the last criterion if it has a zero requirement.
(Commonly known as a half-hour fire check
door)
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Where the time periods for all three criteria
are the same, it is possible, without ambiguity,
to state that the element has, for example, 30
minutes' fire resistance.
This avoids the need to say the element has an
FR 30/30/30 performance.
Again, where the context is perfectly clear, the
prefix FR may be dropped, especially in
verbal usage, so that an FR 30/20 door for
example could be described as a 'thirty twenty
door'.
FR 30/20 → Thirty twenty
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The performance requirements for the
building elements such as walls, floors,
suspended ceilings, columns, beams, lintels,
glazing and roofs are published in BRE
reports.
This may be useful for assessing the likely fire
resistance of constructions used in hotels,
boarding houses, industrial buildings, etc.
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A simple diagram showing the various
components of a building requiring fire
resistance construction is:
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(4) Doors
One method for describing the performance of
fire doors is to define two types of door: the
fire-resisting door, and the smoke control
door.
The performance of the fire-resisting door can
be assessed by the BS476 furnace, but there is
no standard method for testing smoke control
doors.
The International Standards Organisation
(ISO) is considering to develop tests for
assessing such doors.
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In the meantime, doors are commonly
assessed by the standard test on fire resistance.
The insulation criterion is usually waived and
so wired glass panels can be used.
Fire-resisting doors are defined according to
the periods of stability and integrity.
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The following table gives doors in increasing
standard of performance and is very helpful in
relating the previously loosely termed 'fire-
resisting' door or 'fire check' door to the new
number system given above.
New description of door Previous method of door description
1
FR 30/20 -hour fire check
2
1
FR 30/30 -hour fire resisting
2
FR 60/45 1-hour fire check
FR 60/60 1-hour fire resisting
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The term 'fire check' is to be phased out
although it is still widely used in the
construction industry.
'Fire check' was firstly introduced in the
BS459: Part 3: 1951 "Fire-check flush doors
and frames".
This was a construction specification for two
types of flush doors and frame of half-hour
and one-hour fire check.
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If the doors were manufactured in accordance
with the standard specification, they should be
able to provide an effective barrier to the
passage of fire for half hour and one hour
respectively.
The above table shows that performance of a
fire check door is not so good in 'integrity' as
compared with the fire resisting door.
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A door which possesses adequate fire
resistance may not be able to control
spreading of smoke.
For controlling the passage of cool smoke,
synthetic rubber seals, brushes held in grooves
in the door edge, or metal draught strips might
be useful.
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(5) Equation for fire resistance of a building:
Fire resistance required in any building is
given by Margaret Law:
L
tf
(A w A t )1/ 2
tf : Fire resistance period (min)
L : Total fire load (kg equivalent of wood)
Aw : Area of window opening (m2)
At : Area of walls and ceilings excluding windows (m2)
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Rewrite:
Floor area
L Af
tf = A (A A )1/2
f w t
Af
= Fd (A A )1/2
w t
Fire Load density
Effective Fire Resistance tf/min
150 _
Law’s correlation
100 _
50 _
0 50 100 150 L/(Aw AT)1/2
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(6) Tests for building facades:
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Thomas Bell-Wright International Consultants
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Thomas Bell-Wright International Consultants
Fire Spread
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In Hong Kong:
No Research & Development on fire tests.
All updating from BS, ISO, ASTM, NFPA,…,
might not work for us.
(Even NO Budget to investigate which updates
are fine !)
No arguing for small fires !
