Thesis (M. App. Sc.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 149-152). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 205-208). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (MScIng)--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Review of decades of worldwide experience using standards, codes and guidelines related to performance-based fire protection design for buildings has identified shortcomings in the interpretation, application and implementation of the performance-based design process, wide variation in the resulting levels of performance achieved by such designs, and several opportunities to enhance the process. While others have highlighted shortcomings in the past, as well as some ideas to enhance the process, it is proposed that a more fundamental change is needed. First, the political and technical components of the process need to be clearly delineated to facilitate better analysis and decision-making within each component. Second, the process needs to be changed from one which focuses only on fire safety systems to one which views buildings, their occupants and their contents as integrated systems. In doing so, the activities associated with the normal operation of a building and how they might be impacted by the occurrence of a fire event become clearer, as do mitigation options which account for the behaviors and activities associated with normal use. To support these changes, a new framework for a risk-informed performance-based process for fire protection design is proposed: one which is better integrated than current processes, that treats a fire event as a disruptive event of a larger and more complex "building-occupant" system, and that provides more specific guidance for engineering analysis with the aim to achieve more complete and consistent analysis. This Ph.D. Dissertation outlines the challenges with the existing approaches, presents the "building-occupant" system paradigm, illustrates how viewing fire (or any other hazard) as a disruptive event within an holistic "building-occupant" system can benefit the overall performance of this system over its lifespan, and outlines a framework for a risk-informed performance-based process for fire protection design. Case studies are used to illustrate shortcomings in the existing processes and how the proposed process will address these. This Dissertation also includes a plan of action needed to establish guidelines to conduct each of the technical steps of the process and briefly introduces the future work about how this plan could be practically facilitated via a web-platform as a collaborative environment.

Thesis (M.E.F.E.)--University of Canterbury, 2008. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-202). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (doctoral)--Tampere University of Technology, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (MEng (Civil Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / In the past use was made of prescriptive design rules to provide for the fire limit state. Modern Design Codes provide the scope and the means to design for fire in a performance based manner. The Eurocode provides guidance on the actions on structures exposed to fire as well as methods to predict the structural behaviour of elements in fire. Structural designers can now incorporate the use of parametric fire curves to describe compartment fires. These fire models are not an extension of the old nominal standard temperature time curves. Parametric curves are analytical models that are based on natural fire behaviour. The temperature in the fire compartment can be predicted in a scientific manner taking account of fire loads, ventilation conditions and compartment characteristics. The combination of rational fire models and temperature dependant structural behaviour enables designers to predict whether elements will fail during a fire. This is an improvement on the empirical prescriptive fire resistance ratings, used to date. Multi-storey steel framed structures, with composite floors, were identified as structures with high inherent fire resistance and robust behaviour. The composite beams in the floor structure were identified as critical elements when subjected to fire. The deterministic design and the reliability level of these elements were studied. Deterministic fire design procedures are presented that can be used to design unprotected composite beams for the fire limit state. The reliability of the deterministic design procedures was evaluated through a First Order Reliability Method. Parametric fire curves are suitable for reliability analysis due to the fact that they can be described by stochastic variables. The fire load was determined to be the dominant variable influencing the reliability level of the composite beams. The ventilation conditions of the fire compartment also has important implications for the temperature development of the composite beams. The reliability analyses results show that reasonably sized composite beams can be used as unprotected elements in smaller fire compartments with moderate fire loads. It was found that a structural element’s total probability of failure can be improved by the use of active fire fighting measures. The benefit of active fire fighting measures can be quantified by considering their probability of failure. By use of conservative assumptions and basic knowledge of fire engineering principles, rational design methods can provide safe and economical solutions for fire design of composite beams.

"Fire investigators have historically relied upon fire damage as a means to conclude where a fire originated despite the lack of formal processes. The historical and current literature on the topic was evaluated with a specific emphasis toward the research conducted over the past eighty years related to fire patterns and their creation in the context of the fire environment. A seven step reasoning process for evaluating damage for determining the area of origin, along with a new definition for the term fire pattern, was developed. The aim was to develop and implement into practice a decision support framework that assists forensic fire investigators in assessing the efficacy of fire burn patterns as reliable indicators of the area of fire origin. This was facilitated by the development of a prototype method for determining the area of origin based on fire patterns analysis, named the Process for Origin Determination (POD). This dissertation describes the application of the POD with test subjects and presents an analysis of the outcomes showing its benefits. It has been shown through the use of reliability and validity tests that the POD assisted novices in more consistently and more accurately determining the area of origin over a variety of scenarios."

Fire resistance design and analysis is an under-studied and under-codified area of bridge engineering. With the lessening of conservatism in bridge design, the aging or our bridge infrastructure, and the increase in the ground transport of highly-flammable and -combustible materials, it is essential that the bridge engineering community better understand and incorporate methods for modeling the effects of fire on bridges. Typical fire resistance analysis looks at the response of individual structural components. Analysis for the component of a bridge is nowhere more important than for that of the main cables of suspension bridges. As such, we will survey and introduce the necessary analysis techniques to provide the bridge engineering community with the knowledge and tools to understand fire modeling and both rapidly and accurately assess their effects on suspension bridge main cables. The work of this dissertation is twofold. In the first portion, we address proper fire modeling techniques for bridge conditions and apply them in a sequential thermal-mechanical analysis of a three-dimensional model main cable with thermally-dependent material and mechanical properties. Although fire modeling has been addressed in a variety of scenarios, including extensive studies for building design and analysis as well as tunnel design and analysis, the types of fires, fire geometries, and air conditions associated with bridge fires vary drastically. Our work identifies the time to failure for our particular main cable example and subsequently compares both the temperature and strain distributions for temperature-dependent and temperature-independent models. Although the three-dimensional analysis is complete, we hope to emulate and expand on the work done in the building fire engineering community and bring to the literature methods to produce significant two-dimensional temperature distributions for when a main cable component is either partially or fully-exposed to fire. As such, the main fire modeling analyses mentioned in the previous paragraph lay the groundwork for our pursuit of closed-form analytical solutions necessary to rapidly and accurately assess the time-dependent temperature distribution within a cable cross-section exposed to fire. These solutions are formed with different approaches depending on the fire scenario in question. They include a separation of variables (eigenfunction) approach, sinusoidal transforms, Laplace transforms, Green's function solutions, and a semi-analytical hybrid method. We validate each of the approaches numerically using three different fire models.

Thesis (M. App. Sc.)--Carleton University. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 228-236). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.