Forum Workshop on Establishing the Scientific Foundation for Performance-Based Fire Codes. Proceedings.
Forum Workshop on Establishing the Scientific Foundation
for Performance-Based Fire Codes. Proceedings.
(699 K)
Grosshandler, W. L.
NIST SP 1061; NIST Special Publication 1061; 66 p.
December 2006.
Forum Workshop on Establishing the Scientific Foundation
for Performance-Based Fire Codes. Proceedings. April
5-7, 2006, 2006.
Keywords:
performance based codes; fire codes; fire research; fire
safety; fire science; experiments; simulation;
combustion models; data sets; fire models; risk
analysis; hazard analysis; fire protection; fire growth;
combustion products; building design; occupants;
structures; design applications
Abstract:
The International Forum of Fire Research Directors
(FORUM) is a group of the Directors of fire research
organizations throughout the world which aim to reduce
the burden of fire (including the loss of life and
property, and effects of fire on the environment and
heritage) through international cooperation on fire
research. The desirability of having a roadmap to
advance the scientific foundation for performance based
fire safety design (PBD) was agreed upon at the 2005
FORUM meeting in Magdeburg, Germany. Representatives
from the FORUM membership and other invited technical
experts gathered at the National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg on April 5-7,
2006, to develop a common, international vision for how
a scientific foundation might be structured, which parts
of the foundation are likely to be robust and where gaps
are likely to exist into the foreseeable future. It was
recognized that performance-based fire safety design
already exists and is practiced in many parts of the
world today, and that our current tools and level of
understanding are adequate to support certain classes of
performance-based fire safety design; however, other
significant PBD applications were identified that exceed
the capabilities of these tools. A vision for the next
generation of performance-based design tools was
developed that included a wide-range of enhanced
capabilities that are documented in this report. Methods
for the attainment of this vision were identified that
included the establishment of * a hierarchy of
meaningful benchmark fire experiments and simulations; *
tractable combustion models that capture the essence of
solid fuels, and with simple multi-step reaction
mechanisms for prediction of CO and soot; * data sets
and experimental facilities for unraveling the
relationships within and interactions among fire
dynamics, structural dynamics, and human behavior;*
efficient interfaces among fire models, structural
models, human behavior models, and risk models; and *
data and means to track uncertainty in risk and hazard
analysis, and to incorporate rare, high consequence
events. Five areas were identified at the top of the
list of research priorities: * improvement of our
ability to predict the impact of active fire protection
systems on fire growth and fate of combustion products;
* estimation of uncertainty and the means to incorporate
it into hazard and risk analyses; * the relationship
between aspects of the building design and the safety of
building occupants; * the impact of material and
geometry changes on fire growth and the fate of
combustion products; and * the prediction of the
response of a structure to full building burn-out. In
general, the commitment by the FORUM members to support
research in a given area was consistent with its
priority. A summary of the activities and justification
for the vision and research priorities are contained in
this report.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899