International Experience In The Development And Use Of Performance - Based Fire Safety Design Methods: Evolution, Current Situation And Thoughts For The Future

Abstract

Over the past fifty years, fire safety engineering* has grown and developed into an accepted. if not fully mature, engineering discipline. This has been possible for a variety of reasons, including an ever-increasing understanding of fire safety science, continuing development of analytical methods for engineering analysis and design, technological advances in computational tools, and the global movement towards performance-based building and fire regulations. This paper reviews the current state of fire safety engineering by looking at international experiences in the development and use of performance-based fire safety design methods. It discusses the impact of increasing scientific knowledge and the evolution of performance-based fire safety design methods and regulations, and it speculates on what will be required for fire safety engineering to reach maturity as an engineering discipline.KEY WORDS: Performance-based fire safety design, fire safety engineering, performancebased building regulations As used in this paper, the term "fire safety engineering" is synonymous with the terms "fire engineering" and "fire protection engineering," and is defined as the application of science and engineering principles to protect people and their environment from fire. safety design, or some derivative thereof. Why is this so? What has driven the fire safety community to search for means and methods to measure, analyze. describe, and predict performance? In many respects, the movement to performance-based analysis and design is part of the natural evolution of an engineering discipline. By one definition. engineering is the art or science of making practical application of the knowledge of pure science [I]. As the knowledge base grows, the horizon for practical application of the knowledge increases accordingly. When this knowledge base includes understanding how materials, ,'systems. and buildings perform under a variety of conditions. it opens the door to performa<ce-based analysis and design. This can be seen by reviewing the development of an allied profession.

The philosophy of fire safety engineering in the shaping of civil engineering development

“…In the opinion of the authors, the need to limit the socio-economic cost of the fire also has a strong influence on the civil engineering development. While direct protection of human life is the essential goal, also features related to the quality of life, such as protection of the property, business continuity, preservation of historical value and the environment must be assured [8]. These elements are not directly required by law, but are enforced by the expectations of investors and users of the engineered buildings.…”

“…A comprehensive description of the history thereof is presented in [8], and the concept of performance-based design in [1,10,11], and recently in [12,13]. In his work published in 2000, Meacham proposed eight fundamental concerns that should be addressed by a comprehensive performance-based framework for fire safety design, which was the base for the development of these methods for the next decades [8]. Since then, we have observed significant progress in each of these fields, but many challenges are still ahead of us.…”

“…Another change happened in the 1970's, when the US General Services Administration and the U.S. National Bureau of Standards jointly developed an event logic diagram that showed alternative ways of achieving building fire safety [8]. This approach, commonly referred to simply as Appendix D, became a fundamental document for describing a risk-informed system approach to designing building fire safety [9].…”

Enhancing Building Fire Safety Performance by Reducing Miscommunication and Misconceptions

“…This form of regulation was intended to facilitate innovation, while at the same time reducing regulatory burden and unnecessary costs. At present, many developed European and Asian countries have adopted or are in the process of adopting performance-based codes and design for fire [11]. Performance-based design (PBD) for fire is also seen in countries which have only prescriptive-based building and fire codes, such as the USA, employed in demonstrating 'equivalency' to the intent of the code under the auspices of the 'alternate methods and materials' clause [12].…”

Conceptual Model Development for Holistic Building Fire Safety Performance Analysis

“…While the prescriptive-based approach continues to be dominantly practiced in some countries, a systems approach for fire safety performance evaluation and design was introduced and explored by fire safety researchers in the 1970s [3], the outcome of which resulted in basis for current performance-based design approaches. In the systems approach, the building and the fire are viewed as critical system components, and the fire safety performance such as life safety and property protection was considered as a result of influences among the system components [4].…”