- Title:
-
Scenario Analysis in Fire Engineering of Major Projects
- Date:
- September 2008
- Organisations
- BCRC
- Authors:
- P. F. Johnson, D. Boverman, C. E. Johnson
- Location:
- Australia, Australia
Overview
The International Bushfire Research Conference 2008 - incorporating The 15th annual AFAC Conference, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Many countries now permit the use of a performance based approach to fire safety design for major construction projects such as high rise buildings, road and rail tunnels, and airports.
The most significant input to a fire engineering analysis is the choice of fire scenarios and related design fires, since they underpin the ensuing fire safety design and its authority approval.
Underplaying the design fires could result in inadequate protection and the unacceptable possibility of major fire incidents; being too conservative and design requirements could become unrealistic, unachievable, and uneconomic.
CRC research in Australia on the use of worst case scenarios for bushfire incident control is now providing some ideas for better building fire engineering. The risk approach in industrial fire protection is also assisting in developing guidance on an improved methodology for design fires for major construction projects.
Key to this improved, systematic approach is a more structured identification of all credible fire scenarios and their classification into those for standard design, those for testing design beyond standard limits, and those which are extreme events and beyond design.Further consideration of the required expertise amongst those involved in scenario planning is also an issue.
This fire scenario technique has been trialled on a major road tunnel project, and is being considered for a national standard. The hope is that the approach will gain broad fire community acceptance and incorporation in fire engineering guidelines or codes of practice.
This approach should allow a more structured, consultative process between design teams, certifiers and fire authorities and lead to more robust designs of major projects in Australia and internationally, and achieving design fire safety levels
