Fire Performance of of a Non-Load Bearing Steel Stud Gypsum Board Wall Assembly. (POSTER ABSTRACTS)
Fire Performance of of a Non-Load Bearing Steel Stud
Gypsum Board Wall Assembly. (POSTER ABSTRACTS)
(101 K)
Manzello, S. L.; Gann, R. G.; Kukuck, S. R.; Prasad, K.
R.; Jones, W. W.
POSTER ABSTRACTS;
Fire Safety Science. Proceedings. Eighth (8th)
International Symposium. (POSTER ABSTRACTS).
International Association for Fire Safety Science
(IAFSS). September 18-23, 2005, Beijing, China, Intl.
Assoc. for Fire Safety Science, Boston, MA, Gottuk, D.
T.; Lattimer, B. Y., Editor(s), 1638-1638 p., 2005.
Keywords:
fire research; fire safety; fire science; gypsum board;
steels; compartments; fire resistance; partitions; wall
assembly
Abstract:
To mitigate fire spread in buildings, building codes
dictate that compartments in buildings must be separated
by fire rated barriers or partitions. Consequently,
these partitions are rated based on their resistance to
the passage of heat and smoke. Use of these standards
has been successful in reducing the number of fires that
have killed people and destroyed structures. Intact
partitions are important in preventing the spread of
flame, keeping egress paths available, and increasing
safe time in places of refuge. To assess partition
performance for these functions, it is necessary to
know, in terms of real time, how long the interior
partitions in a building will contain flames and smoke.
Unfortunately, it has long been known that current fire
resistance ratings obtained in furnaces do not coincide
with actual safety times, but rather only provide
relative guidance as to partition performance. This
suggests a high benefit to public safety from placing
the fire resistance of partitions on an absolute basis.
Such an advance would empower the use of prescriptive
requirements while contributing to the emerging
discipline of performance-based design. We have embarked
on a course to provide a methodology to be used in
performancebased design of buildings. The research
involves obtaining real-scale experimental data,
modeling the behavior of partitions as they are driven
to failure by the fire, and developing recommendations
for obtaining input parameters from modifications to
standard fire resistance tests such as ASTM E119 and ISO
834. To this end, a gypsum wall assembly was exposed to
an intense real-scale compartment fire. For the wall
assembly, temperatures were measured at the exposed
face, within the stud cavity, and at the unexposed face
during the fire exposure. Total heat flux gauges were
used to measure the temporal variation of the energy
incident on the walls and cameras, both visual and
infrared, were used to image the unexposed face of the
wall assembly during the fire exposure. The behavior of
the wall assembly under the fire load is presented as
are current model results for a simulation of the fire
test.
