Building fire safety is significantly influenced by building and fire safety regulations (often codes and standards). These regulations specify what fire safety measures should be included in a given building as a minimum requirement. Since fire engineers develop fire safety designs based on the regulations, they are often viewed as the primary agents in ensuring the fire safety of buildings. However, their mission often starts with given building design features, such as interior spatial layout, exterior shape, site plan, and so forth, which are mostly determined by architects (or architects). Although architects design buildings within the boundaries of the regulatory requirements, their focus is not generally on fire safety, but more on visual and spatial aesthetics of buildings. These objectives are linked to building form and functionality, which are not subject to the building and fire safety regulations. These objectives can sometimes compete with fire safety objectives in such a way that buildings can be unsafe in certain situations due to unintended effects of building design features on actual fire safety performance. To determine whether a building has design features which work against fire safety performance, evaluation of building fire safety performance must take into account the effects of building design features. If fire safety performance is significantly decreased by building design attributes, additional fire safety measures or modifications of the building design should be incorporated to provide an appropriate level of fire safety performance. While there have been various building fire safety evaluation tools developed over the last forty or so years, none of them comprehensively considers building design features and their associated effects as key performance parameters. In this context, the current study develops conceptual models for fire safety performance assessment in both qualitative and quantitative manners. After scrutinizing previous fire incidents and the building features which contributed to their outcomes, various fire safety performance attributes, including building design features, are identified and cause-effect relationships among the attributes are established. Then, the attributes are organized hierarchically like a tree diagram such that the performance of one upper level attribute is determined by the combined performance of multiple lower level attributes. In this way, the performance of bottom level attributes propagates upward to the upper level attributes. Two tree diagrams are established for the most common fire safety objectives, life safety and property protection. Each attribute in the tree diagrams has two quantified values: performance value and weighting factor. The current study uses three different performance values (0.01, 0.5, and 1) for bottom level attributes representing poor, average and good performance, respectively. In addition, as each attribute can have different contribution to upper level attributes, a weighting factor between 0 and 1 is assigned to each attribute which represent the relative importance. With these two values, the performance value of an upper level attribute is calculated using the weighted sum method (summation of multiplied values of performance value and weighting factor) which is commonly used in the Analytical Hierarchy Process. As the performance of an attributes is a function of specific designs, building uses, occupants, and site conditions, in the first instance, judgments of the fire engineers can be used to assign weights and performance values, but they can also be determined jointly among stakeholders. Generally speaking, the details of attributes for fire safety performance are not determined at once. Rather they are gradually determined as the building design progresses. This means that in early design building design phase, many of the attributes are unknown as well as fire safety performance. Once appropriate information can be provided to architects by fire engineers at each building design phase, it is likely to avoid possible conflicts between design details and fire safety performance. Using the fire safety evaluation model, weak attributes for fire safety performance can be identified and possible make-up strategy and building design approach can be developed in advance. This provides the potential for the collaboration between fire engineers and architects and at the end for increasing building fire safety performance of buildings.

Due to the economic booms in Taiwan, huge buildings were constructed frequently and with more versatility in use. Which makes the fire protection and egress becoming a more important issue. In evaluating the smoke management and egress effectiveness, the method published by the Ministry of the Interior (MOI), or named as Route B, was widely adapted in Taiwan. However, when using this method in evaluating rooms with less than 200 square meters, difficulty existed due to the lower ceiling height and fixed internal heat released rate. It is the goal of this research to analyze the feasibility in adapting a ¡§Simplified Zone Model¡¨ for this purposes. In this research, various mathematical models were analyzed and compared first, followed by quantitative comparison with smoke descending rates calculated by both methods. It is concluded that the Simplified Zone model is suitable for evaluating rooms with floor area less than 200 square meters. Otherwise, the Route B method as proposed by the MOI is appropriate as expected.

Traditional methods for specifying thermal inputs for the structural fire analysis of buildings assume uniform burning and homogeneous temperature conditions throughout a compartment, regardless of its size. This is in contrast to the observation that accidental fires in large, open-plan compartments tend to travel across floor plates, burning over a limited area at any one time. This thesis reviews the assumptions inherent in the traditional methods and addresses their limitations by proposing a methodology that considers travelling fires for structural design. Central to this work is the need for strong collaboration between fire safety engineers to define the fire environment and structural fire engineers to assess the subsequent structural behaviour. The traditional hypothesis of homogeneous temperature conditions in postflashover fires is reviewed by analysis of existing experimental data from wellinstrumented fire tests. It is found that this assumption does not hold well and that a rational statistical approach to fire behaviour could be used instead. The methodology developed in this thesis utilises travelling fires to produce more realistic fire scenarios in large, open-plan compartments than the conventional methods that assume uniform burning and homogeneous gas phase temperatures which are only applicable to small compartments. The methodology considers a family of travelling fires that includes the full range of physically possible fire sizes iv within a given compartment. The thermal environment is split into two regions: the near field (flames) and the far field (smoke away from the flames). Smaller fires travel across a floor plate for long periods of time with relatively cool far field temperatures, while larger fires have hotter far field temperatures but burn for shorter durations. The methodology is applied to case studies showing the impact of travelling fires on generic concrete and steel structures. It is found that travelling fires have a considerable impact on the performance of these structures and that conventional design approaches cannot automatically be assumed to be conservative. The results indicate that medium sized fires between 10% and 25% of the floor area are the most onerous for a structure. Detailed sensitivity analyses are presented, showing that the structural design and fuel load have a larger impact on structural behaviour than any numerical or physical parameter required for the methodology. This thesis represents a foundation for using travelling fires for structural analysis and design. The impact of travelling fires is critical for understanding true structural response to fire in modern, open-plan buildings. It is recommended that travelling fires be considered more widely for structural design and the structural mechanics associated with them be studied in more detail. The methodology presented in this thesis provides a key framework for collaboration between fire safety engineers and structural fire engineers to achieve these aims.

Recent improvements in equipment used by firefighters has increased the value of manual suppression in buildings. However, because there is no evaluation method available, the effectiveness of manual suppression can not be incorporated into a fire safety analysis of a building. This thesis develops a method for evaluating manual suppression in buildings. he evaluation is done through an analysis of the paths through a building firefighters will use to attack a fire. The analysis considers the building, fire and fire department factors influencing progress towards teh fire. The fire attack path analysis yeilds a value relating the relative difficulty of a path.

The study of the products of combustion continues to have real-world relevance since the primary cause of death in building fires is smoke inhalation, with the majority of deaths from carbon monoxide, CO, poisoning. An experimental study was conducted to examine upper-layer structure plus provide an initial characterization of a new compartment with a doorway. An additional study of the relationship between heat flux from external burning in a hallway and levels of carbon monoxide is also reported. Tests were conducted in a new ½ scale ISO compartment with a fully scaled doorway, using n-hexane pool fires within the center of the compartment. Upper-layer sampling at eight locations in the compartment has shown that the compartment upper-layer is relatively uniform in species mole fractions, yields, and temperature. Sampling in the front upper-layer of the compartment was performed for a series of experiments where the equivalence ratio was varied. Temperatures, species mole fractions, species yields, and doorway flows were found to have definite trends, which agreed with previous studies. The heat flux study utilized a reduced scale compartment with a separate inlet and an exit vent, which connected into the side of an attached hallway, forming an L-shape. For two cases of a deep and shallow hallway upper-layer a direct relationship between flames in the upper-layer and total heat flux was measured. High heat flux was found to only denote those areas were flames are present and is not related to the levels of CO present or oxidized in the hallway. / Master of Science

Earthquakes can severely damage building structural and nonstructural systems and components, including active and passive fire protection and egress systems. If the occurrence of such damage is not anticipated at the design stage, the impact of a post-earthquake fire could be significant, as building and fire protection systems may not perform as expected. Unfortunately, even though both the seismic and fire engineering communities utilize performance-based approaches for designing well-performing and resilient buildings under earthquake and fire hazards respectively, each discipline carries out their associated building performance analyses independently. As a result, fire protection engineers have little guidance as to how to estimate structural and nonstructural building systems and component damage as inputs to help them develop post-earthquake building fire scenarios. To help bridge this gap, a conceptual framework is developed that illustrates how performance-based approaches for earthquake and fire engineering analysis and design can become more integrated for the development of post-earthquake fire scenarios. Using a fictional building in an earthquake prone area as an example, the conceptual framework is implemented to show (a) how earthquake-induced damage to building fire protection systems could be estimated using an earthquake performance assessment tool, (b) how the damage estimates might be translated into physical damage parameters in a way that is meaningful for developing post-earthquake building fire scenarios, (c) how the damage states might be implemented in terms of fire and egress modeling input parameters, and (d) how this information could be used to and compare post-earthquake building fire safety performance to a normal(undamaged) building fire conditions.

Ce travail de thèse est consacré à l’évaluation et l’amélioration des modèles à zones, utilisés dans l’ingénierie de la sécurité incendie pour simuler la propagation des fumées dans un bâtiment en situation d’incendie. Il a pour ambition d’améliorer la compréhension des écoulements des fumées dans un bâtiment. Le mémoire de thèse est divisé en deux parties. La première est essentiellement consacrée à l’état de l’art et à une évaluation de la capacité du code CFAST, code à zones largement utilisé dans l’ingénierie de la sécurité incendie, à simuler les écoulements de fumées dans un bâtiment. Le code à zones CFAST est confronté aux résultats d’une campagne expérimentale à échelle réelle réalisée dans un bâtiment d’habitation de type R+3. La seconde partie du manuscrit, plus académique, consiste à étudier les écoulements de fumée dans un bâtiment. Dans un premier temps, deux phénomènes sont étudiés : le phénomène de remplissage d’un local par des fumées d’incendie, et le phénomène de remplissage / vidange simultanés d’un local ventilé naturellement. Des modèles à zones permettant de décrire ces phénomènes sont présentés. Deux campagnes expérimentales ont été menées à échelle réduite sur des maquettes thermiques de locaux, afin d’étudier les deux phénomènes et d’évaluer et améliorer les modèles à zones. De plus, des simulations numériques complémentaires avec le code à champs FDS (Fire Dynamics Simulator) sont réalisées pour étendre le domaine d’étude du phénomène de remplissage. Enfin, des améliorations du modèle à zones sont proposées. Après l’étude des phénomènes liés aux écoulements de fumée dans un local unique, les écoulements de fumées dans une configuration multi-compartiments, constituée de deux locaux reliés par une cage d’escalier, sont étudiés expérimentalement à l’échelle du laboratoire / This work is devoted to the evaluation and improvement of zone models, used in fire safety engineering to simulate the smoke propagation in a building in a fire situation. It aims at improving the understanding of the smoke flow in a building. The PhD work is divided into two parts. The first part is essentially devoted to a bibliographical survey and an evaluation of the ability of a zone code CFAST, widely used in fire safety engineering, to simulate smoke flows in a building. Numerical results with CFAST are compared with the data of a real-scale experimental campaign carried out on a three-storey residential building. The second part, more academic, consists of studying the smoke flows in a building. Two phenomena are first studied, namely the smoke filling of a room, and the simultaneous filling and emptying of a naturally ventilated room. Zone models describing these phenomena are presented. Two experimental campaigns are conducted on reduced scale room models, in order to study the two phenomena and to evaluate and improve the zone models. Furthermore, numerical simulations with the CFD code FDS (Fire Dynamics Simulator) are performed to extend the study field of the smoke filling. Finally, improvements to the zone model are proposed. After studying the phenomena related to smoke flows in a single room, the smoke flows in a multi-compartment configuration, consisting of two rooms connected by a stairwell, are experimentally studied at the laboratory scale

The diploma thesis includes a new building of the fire department. The building is located in Valašské Klobouky, along Brumovská street. The main entrances to the buildings are oriented to the west. It is a two-storey building, in part a basement. The construction system is bricked. The object is covered with a flat and sloping roof.

In diploma thesis is elaborated project documentation for the construction of an building of kindergarten. The building is situated in peryphery of Jihlava city. The building is two-storey kindergarten building with a basement. There aure two classes for children 3 - 6 years old in the building. In diploma thesis is elaborated architect-building solutions, building – construction solutions, fire safety solutions and physics qualities of constructions.

The master’s thesis on the topic Low- energy kindergarten is processed in the form of project documentation for the implementation of the new building. The building is designed on a plot of 1350/5 in the cadastral Karviná. It is the kindergarten with a basement and two floors. The building contains two classes for a total of 48 children. Food is provided by imports.