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MSc Lecture 4:

Review on Fire Tests

Professor W.K. Chow
Department of Building Services Engineering
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hong Kong, China
22 Sep 2015
MScFDFiretest.ppt

(1) Standard fire tests such as BS 476

have the following parts
Part 3: External fire exposure roof test

Part 4: Non-combustibility test for materials

Part 5: Ignitability
Part 6: Fire propagation index
Part 7: Surface spread of flame tests
Part 8: Fire resistance of elements of building
construction

Part 11: Heat emission from building materials

Part 12: Ignitability of products using direct
flame impingement

Part 13: Ignitability of products subjected to

thermal irradiance
Part 14: Rate of flame spread on surface of
products
Part 15: Rate of heat release of products
Part 16: Smoke
release
products

(obscuration)

of

Part 20: General principles - requirements for

the determination of the fire resistance
of elements of building construction
Part 21: Fire resistance of loadbearing elements
Part 22: Fire resistance
elements

of

non-loadbearing

Part 23: Determine contribution provided by

components elements to the fire
resistance of a structure

Part 24: Fire resistance of elements penetrated

by building services
Part 30: Flat and sloping roof exposed to an
external fire
Part 31: Measuring smoke penetration tho' door
sets and shutters assemblies

Data acquisition system for Noncombustibility test

Surface Spread of Flame Test for Materials

Software

ASTM LIFT Flame Spreading Apparatus

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Fire Propagation Test

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Testing for different stages of a fire:

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(2) Fire Resistance

BS Glossory:
The ability of an element of building
construction to withstand the effects of fire for
a specified period of time without loss of its fire
separating or load bearing function.

Code of Practice for

Fire Resisting Construction 1996
Local requirement:
Code of practice for fire resisting
construction (CoP FRC),
Buildings Department, Hong
Kong (1996)
Under which every building is
required to have adequate Fire
Resistance Period (FRP)

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Fire Codes now:

New passive
code

Code of Practice for Fire Safety in

Buildings April 2012

Active

FSI Codes

Prescriptive codes in Hong Kong

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Old codes on passive construction:

MoE Codes

MoA Codes

FRC Codes

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Common grades are:

1-hr FRP
2-hr FRP

4-hr FRP

Those grades were developed in UK 300

years ago
Based on statistics of fire load
Several factors affecting FRP
Rationale should be fully understood
before making fire design

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There are several types of fire:

accidental fire
arson fire
terrorist attack fire
natural disaster fire
Fire safety provisions are basically for
accidental fire.
It would cost a lot to provide protection
against arson fire and terrorist attack fire.

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But a fire might be different under various

conditions, more specified definition:

The ability of an element of building

construction to satisfy for a stated period of
time; some or all of the criteria specified in BS
476 Part 8;
namely:

resistance to collapse;
resistance to flame penetration; and
resistance to excessive temperature on the
unexposed face.

A temperature time curve has to be used in the

furnace for assessing fire resistance.

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(3) Fire resistance testing

The time/temperature condition for the growth
and development stage in a fire is used for
testing the failure criteria of elements of
construction when exposed to fire.

This is called the standard time/temperature

curve and is given as follows:
Temp/C
1000

T - To = 345 log (8t + 1)

1 hr

where

To is the ambient air temperature in the test chamber

t is the time in minutes starting from the onset of fire

4 hr

Time

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Fire Resistance Furnace

Column furnace
showing a steel
column after test

Concrete wall panel

after test in a
vertical furnace

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Floor Furnace Showing a Timber Floor

Collapsing

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Heating and Stress Applied on Test

Specimen

Vertical separating element

Horizontal separating element

Furnace
Direction of applied
heating and pressure

Beam

Column

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For any structural element to withstand a fire, it

must have one or all of the following properties:
(1) Stability -

ability to carry the load without

collapsing.

(2) Integrity -

cracks or perforations will not

develop to allow passage of smoke
and flame from one side to the
other side of the element.

(3) Insulation - ability to prevent the passage of

heat from one face to the other
face of the element.

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For example: the diagrams showing the meaning of

fire resistance for floors, doors and walls are:
Average temperature rised not
more than 139 C

fire
fire
fire
collapse or excessive passage of flames lack of insulation
deflection

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collapse or excessive
deflection

passage of flames

lack of insulation

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tr

Tstand dt Tdt
0

Temperature / C

FRP

FRP

tr

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Equal Area Hypothesis

Ingbergs equal area hypothesis 1928
If the two areas under the temp/time curves
are equal, then they have the same severity

Tstand dt T dt
t1

Temperature / oC

FRP

Tstand = Standard Temperature/Time Curve

Time (min)

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A simple number system has been devised

prefixed by the initial FR (standing for fire
resistance), with the first number refers to
the stability period, the second the integrity
period and the third (where used) the
insulation period; with all periods being
given in minutes,
i.e.

FR
Stability
(min)

/
Integrity
(min)

/
Insulation
(min)

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The number system can be illustrated by

using the following two examples.
Example 1:
A floor which requires a stability of 30
minutes, and integrity and insulation both
of 15 minutes is described as a FR 30/15/15
floor.
(A modified half-hour floor in small houses
under England and Wales building term).

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Example 2:
A door which requires a stability of 30
minutes, integrity of 20 minutes and nil
insulation would be described as a FR 30/20
door. Note that no number is used to
describe the last criterion if it has a zero
requirement.
(Commonly known as a half-hour fire
check door)

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Where the time periods for all three criteria

are the same, it is possible, without
ambiguity, to state that the element has, for
example, 30 minutes' fire resistance.
This avoids the need to say the element has
an FR 30/30/30 performance.
Again, where the context is perfectly clear,
the prefix FR may be dropped, especially in
verbal usage, so that an FR 30/20 door for
example could be described as a 'thirty
twenty door'.
FR 30/20 Thirty twenty

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The performance
building elements
suspended ceilings,
glazing and roofs
reports.

requirements for the

such as walls, floors,
columns, beams, lintels,
are published in BRE

This may be useful for assessing the likely

fire resistance of constructions used in
hotels,
boarding
houses,
industrial
buildings, etc.

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A simple diagram showing the various

components of a building requiring fire
resistance construction is:

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(4) Doors
One
method
for
describing
the
performance of fire doors is to define two
types of door: the fire-resisting door, and
the smoke control door.
The performance of the fire-resisting door
can be assessed by the BS476 furnace, but
there is no standard method for testing
smoke control doors.
The International Standards Organisation
(ISO) is considering to develop tests for
assessing such doors.

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In the meantime, doors are commonly

assessed by the standard test on fire
resistance.
The insulation criterion is usually waived
and so wired glass panels can be used.
Fire-resisting doors are defined according
to the periods of stability and integrity.

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The following table gives doors in

increasing standard of performance and is
very helpful in relating the previously
loosely termed 'fire-resisting' door or 'fire
check' door to the new number system
given above.
New description of door
FR 30/20
FR 30/30
FR 60/45
FR 60/60

Previous method of door description

1
-hour fire check
2
1
-hour fire resisting
2
1-hour fire check
1-hour fire resisting

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The term 'fire check' is to be phased out

although it is still widely used in the
construction industry.
'Fire check' was firstly introduced in the
BS459: Part 3: 1951 "Fire-check flush
doors and frames".
This was a construction specification for
two types of flush doors and frame of halfhour and one-hour fire check.

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If the doors were manufactured in

accordance with the standard specification,
they should be able to provide an effective
barrier to the passage of fire for half hour
and one hour respectively.
The above table shows that performance of
a fire check door is not so good in 'integrity'
as compared with the fire resisting door.

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A door which possesses adequate fire

resistance may not be able to control
spreading of smoke.
For controlling the passage of cool smoke,
synthetic rubber seals, brushes held in
grooves in the door edge, or metal draught
strips might be useful.

(5) Equation for fire resistance of a

building:
Fire resistance required in any building is
given by Margaret Law:

L
tf
(A w A t )1/ 2
tf : Fire resistance period (min)
L : Total fire load (kg equivalent of wood)
Aw : Area of window opening (m2)
At : Area of walls and ceilings excluding windows (m2)

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Rewrite:
Floor area

Af
L
tf = A (A A )1/2
f
w
t
Af
= Fd (A A )1/2
w
t
Fire Load density
Effective Fire Resistance tf/min
150 _
Laws correlation
100 _

50 _

50

100

150

L/(Aw AT)1/2