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FireSafe
CASE STUDIES IN
STRUCTURAL STEEL

Fire safety engineering by design Issue 3, March 2006

Alternative solutions in

Fire Safety Engineering

Bare Steel Construction
• Un-compromised Safety
• Architectural flexibility
• Reduced construction costs

Adelaide Airport

www.onesteel.com

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find out more?
TALK IN CONFIDENCE TO
YOUR ONESTEEL STATE
MARKET ENGINEER
NSW/ACT David Bell
Phone: (02) 9792 9075
Fax: (02) 9792 9093
Mobile: 0407 357 120
belld@onesteel.com
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Phone: (07)3845 5603
Fax: (07) 3845 5609
Mobile: 0417 145 199
vanderkreekn@onesteel.com
VIC/TAS Gary Oldfield
Phone: (03) 8312 2639
Fax: (03) 8312 2650
oldfieldg@onesteel.com
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Phone: (03) 8312 2633
Fax: (03) 8312 2650
Mobile: 0419 587 951
dallass@onesteel.com
REFERENCES
1. Fire Code Reform Centre,
“Fire Safety in Shopping
Centres”, Final Research
Report, Project 6
2. OneSteel/BHP Special
Publication, “Design of
Sprinklered Shopping
Centres for Fire
Safety”, 2001
3. Bennetts, I. D.
and Thomas, I. R., Design of
Sprinklered Shopping Centre
Buildings, Journal of Fire
Protection Engineering, Vol
12 No. 4, 2002, Society of
Fire Protection Engineers
FireSafe™ : Fire Safety Engineering by Design
Welcome to FireSafe™ Solutions Issue 3, showcasing steel framed retail projects that
benefited from the application of performance based Fire Safety Engineering assessments,
to provide alternative solutions using bare steel construction that can offer benefits such as:
Increased Safety Levels
Architectural Flexibility
Focus on Shopping
and Retail Centres
Modern shopping centres are
complex buildings for which it is
sometimes difficult to satisfy the
Building Code of Australia’s (BCA)
prescriptive deemed-to-satisfy
provisions and achieve the desired
functionality. Access between levels
is important and this, combined
with the desire to have buildings
that are more open and connected,
means that substantial openings are
provided between levels. Traditional
“compartmentation” therefore has little
meaning and is unlikely to offer much
assistance in containing the effects
of a major fire. This, combined with
the fact that these buildings contain
massive quantities of combustibles,
means that extremely severe fires
could develop within these buildings.
Such fires could have disastrous
effects due to the associated smoke
and heat.
A significant amount of research
has been undertaken over the last
eight years and supported by funding
from OneSteel (and previously BHP
Steel) and the Building Commission
of Victoria. The original work was
undertaken under the guidance of
the Fire Code Reform Centre (FCRC)
and the results were published in a
summary report prepared for that
organisation [1]. This report and other
detailed reports prepared for the
FCRC dealing with aspects of the
fire safety of shopping centres are
available directly from the website of
the Australian Building Codes Board
(ABCB). This work was extended
following further testing and slightly
revised but more complete design
and management recommendations
were given in the OneSteel publication
“Design of Sprinklered Shopping
Centres for Fire Safety”, 2001 [2].
The essential content of the approach
has been described in the technical
| Page 2
Reduced Building Costs
Faster Construction
paper by Bennetts and Thomas [3]. The
advocated design and management
approach only applies to low-rise
(typically 4 storeys or less), sprinklered
shopping centres.
It is important to note that shopping
centre buildings are examples of
buildings for which there are strong
economic motives to avoid a significant
fire, and management practices within
these buildings are often conducive to
achieving this outcome. Examples of
these practices are:
Avoiding fire starts
• house-keeping audits
• audits of electrical cabinets
(e.g. infrared evaluation)
• residual current protection
• regular replacement of old
electrical (light) installations
• maintenance of electrical
equipment
Minimising fire size
• camera surveillance within centre
(security)
• fire awareness and fire-fighting
training for all staff
• sprinkler management policies
None of the above factors are
considered in building codes or
regulations, yet it is possible that
these may have a bigger impact on
fire safety than the specific matters
addressed by the regulations. In
reality, the fire safety of these
buildings is a complex function of
building management, the reliability of
systems, occupant behaviour, smoke
management, building layout, fire-
fighting facilities and personnel, and
the behaviour of the building structure.
It has been found that the
achievement of high levels of fire
safety will be almost totally dependent
on limiting the fire size and providing
alternative paths for occupants to
move to safer places within the
building. Although it can be argued that
such a philosophy could be applied
to every building it is particularly
critical with such buildings because
of their size and interconnectedness.
Current deemed-to-satisfy regulations
are confused on this matter as they
frequently allow smoke exhaust
systems to be designed for relatively
small fires but the structure (which
is only affected locally) is required to
have very high levels of fire resistance,
suggesting a much more severe fire.
The reality is that it will be impossible
to design a smoke exhaust system
for a major unsprinklered fire - yet
testing undertaken as part of the above
research has illustrated the fact that
such fires are quite possible.
The achievement of high levels of
safety in these buildings is actually
a risk management exercise where
the objective could be taken as
eliminating the occurrence of a
major unsprinklered fire. This will be
achieved through appropriate design
and through proper management of
the fire-safety systems. Therefore
fire-safety practitioners must have a
significant input into developing and
maintaining appropriate management
practices and procedures. Under these
circumstances it can be argued that
the design fires appropriate to all fire-
safety systems (including the building
structure) should be sprinklered fires.
The buildings described in this
booklet have been mostly based on
the recommendations of the above
publications. These buildings include
two shopping centre complexes
in Adelaide – West Lakes Mall
redevelopment and Norwood shopping
plaza, Adelaide airport redevelopment
since this building contains significant
retail and Rhodes Shopping Centre
in NSW.
Norwood Plaza
THE STEEL-FRAMED SOLUTION PROVIDES THE SPEED
REQUIRED TO MEET THE CHRISTMAS RUSH.

THE SPEED OF CONSTRUCTION

PROVIDED BY THE STEEL-FRAMED
SOLUTION OFFERED THE
TENANTS THE POSSIBILITY
OF PRE-CHRISTMAS TRADING.
THE $24.5MILLION PROJECT
WAS COMPLETED IN JUST
12 MONTHS FROM START
OF DEMOLITION TO THE
FIRST RETAIL SALE.

Norwood plaza consists of varying With the exception of transfer surface area-to-mass ratio to achieve OWNER/DEVELOPERS
Parkade Pty Ltd
numbers of levels throughout. beams, no beams within the project the required performance without
A basement carpark is provided were fire protected and this lead to additional fire-protective coating. ARCHITECTS
throughout the building with the significant economies in construction. Hardy - Millazzo
The fire safety engineering report
number of storeys above this varying Intumescent coatings were used to relating to the structural steelwork STRUCTURAL AND
BUILDING SERVICES
from one to three floors at the eastern achieve enhanced fire-resistance for produced by OneSteel’s fire engineers ENGINEER
edge of the building. Ground floor is the columns and transfer members Ceasre VU, emphasised the need for Kellogg Brown Root
retail and includes a major store. although the report concluded that a (KBR)
development and implementation of
The other levels incorporate carparking, lesser fire resistance was required, and fire-safety management plans within BUILDER/PROJECT
MANAGER
commercial and plant areas. that in some cases, the columns and this shopping centre. Hansen Yuncken
The building has an escalator link beams had a sufficiently low exposed
BUILDING CERTIFIER
between the basement carpark and Katnich Dodd
the ground floor retail.
PHOTOGRAPHER
A structural steel framing solution Kevin O’Daly
was utilised for this building and a
fire-safety engineering evaluation was
undertaken to determine the extent NORWOOD PLAZA – FIRE RESISTANCE REQUIREMENTS SUMMARY
of fire protection required for the
BUILDING ELEMENT ELEMENT REQUIREMENT
structural steelwork and this was done
in accordance with the references
DTS Alternative Solution
discussed in the introduction.
beams in carpark ksm* ≤ 30m2/tonne
The structural steel framework
incorporated a variety of OneSteel columns in 60/-/- 60/-/- but report considered
carpark that ksm sufficiently low and
300PLUS® Sections including welded no protection required
columns and tubular columns and columns in retail 180-/- 60/-/- but report
transfer, primary and secondary beams recommended 30/-/-#
ranging in size from welded beams (for transfer beams 180-/- 60/-/- but report considered
transfer beams) to 310UB40 sections that ksm sufficiently low and
no protection required
(for secondary beams).
beams in retail 180/-/- ksm = 30m2/tonne
sprinklers YES YES
k sm is the exposed surface area-to-mass ratio
*# also applies to connections between primary beams and columns

FireSafe™ : Fire Safety Engineering by Design | Page 3

 Adelaide Airport Terminal
A SHOPPING CENTRE IN FIRE ENGINEERING TERMS.

THE $260 MILLION REDEVELOPMENT

OF ADELAIDE AIRPORT IN FIRE SAFETY
ENGINEERING DESIGN TERMS IS VERY SIMILAR
TO A SHOPPING CENTRE – LARGE IN PLAN
RELATIVE TO ITS 3 STOREY HEIGHT WITH MANY
PEOPLE COMING AND GOING THROUGH ITS
OPEN MALL TYPE AREAS AND RETAIL STORES.

FireSafe™ : Fire Safety Engineering by Design | Page 4

 This building consists of three
levels and includes retail outlets; a
departure lounge, an arrival lounge,
baggage handling, and baggage
reclaim areas. There are also
administration areas and gate
lounges. According to the BCA, the
building is a mixture of Class 9 and
Class 6 and would be required to be
constructed as Type A construction.
A section through the building is
shown below.
Steel-framed construction was
chosen to allow ease of construction
and to deliver the desired architectural
features.
OneSteel’s fire engineers Cesare
VU assessed the fire safety aspects of
this building relating to the structural
steel. Their report indicated that
the building should be designed in
accordance with reference [2] (see
Introduction). It was agreed by the
stakeholders in the fire engineering
process that the building need only
be generally designed to resist
the range of possible sprinklered
fires. This design assumption was
considered to be satisfactory on the
to ensure that during such isolations,
particular fire-safety measures
are put into place to minimise the
likelihood of a significant fire.
It was recognised that airport
terminal buildings are highly
supervised buildings where occupants
are likely to detect fires relatively
rapidly. Most fires will be extinguished
before the sprinklers are activated
and will be assisted by the availability
of portable extinguishers and
appropriate training of airport staff.
The airport fire brigade was also
noted as being close at hand. The
isolation management procedure is
to be aimed at managing sprinkler
isolations so as to minimise the likelihood
of a serious non-sprinklered fire.
On the basis of extensive sprinkler
testing it was established that
sprinklered fires would not result in
a significant increase in temperature
of exposed structural steel members.
In several areas it was noted that
columns pass through parts of the
building with high ceilings where
activation of sprinklers on the ceilings
would be likely to be delayed. Parts
of the building where such situations
may occur include areas such as the
departure and arrival areas. It was
noted that the fire load in these areas
was localised and given the exposed
surface area-to-mass ratio of the
300PLUS® columns passing through
these areas would not result in
column failure if subject to a localised
fire before sprinkler activation.
OWNER/DEVELOPER
Adelaide Airport
Limited

basis that sprinkler management PROJECT MANAGER

and maintenance procedures were Barry Phillis &
Associates
developed and implemented to
minimise the frequency, extent and ARCHITECT
duration of sprinkler isolations and Hassell

ADELAIDE AIRPORT TERMINAL – FIRE RESISTANCE REQUIREMENTS SUMMARY STRUCTURAL ENGINEER

Wallbridge & Gilbert
BUILDING ELEMENT ELEMENT REQUIREMENT
D & C CONTRACTOR
Hansen Yuncken
DTS Alternative Solution
BUILDING SERVICES
columns FRL 180/-/- (retail) generally no requirement; in ENGINEER
FRL 120/-/- (other areas) high roof areas sufficiently low Bestec
k sm* to survive localised fire
BUILDING CERTIFIER
beams FRL 180/-/- (retail) no requirement Airport Building
FRL 120/-/- (other areas) Controller

floors 180/180/180 (retail) 60/60/60

120/120/120 (other areas)
sprinklers YES YES

k sm is the exposed surface area-to-mass ratio

*
FireSafe™ : Fire Safety Engineering by Design | Page 5
 Rhodes Waterside
Shopping Centre
135,000 SQUARE METRES OF SHOPPING AREA
ENCLOSED BY A STEEL-FRAMED STRUCTURE.
This is a 135,000 m2 project
incorporating below ground
carparking over the entire site with a
retail complex including two levels of
specialist shopping malls, mini-major
retail tenancies (Coles® & Bi-lo®),
bulky goods retail (IKEA®), food courts,
cinemas and 4 levels of commercial
tenancy above the cinemas. A full
height carpark structure adjacent
to the retail tenancies provides
carparking over 9 levels including
the basement. Carparking is also
OWNER/DEVELOPER available over the top of IKEA®, as
Walker Corporation
part of the 2,000 overall car spaces
ARCHITECT provided in the shopping centre.
The Buchan Group
The fire-safety engineering design
STRUCTURAL for this complex considered each
ENGINEER
Van der Meer of the individual areas within the
Consulting complex and incorporated specific
measures to minimise the likelihood
BUILDER/PROJECT
MANAGER of a severe fire. Sprinkler zoning was
Walker Group selected such that separate zones
Constructions
were provided for the mini-major
FIRE ENGINEERING stores and bulky-good areas and
Lincolne Scott other key areas in order to maximise
BUILDING CERTIFIER the reliability of the sprinkler systems.
McKenzie Group
FireSafe™ : Fire Safety Engineering by Design | Page 6
BUILT AT A REPORTED COST OF $150
MILLION DOLLARS IS A SHOPPING CENTRE
THAT INTERACTS WITH THE RESIDENTIAL
BUILDINGS AROUND IT, PROVIDING NOT
JUST SHOPPING BUT MEDICAL SERVICES,
BUSINESS OFFICES RESTAURANTS, AN EIGHT-
SCREEN CINEMA COMPLEX AND A BULKY
GOODS RETAIL STORE AND WAREHOUSE.
This was necessary since speciality
stores are far more subject to change
and modification than major stores
and therefore it is more likely that
sprinklers would be isolated in the
speciality shops to allow tenancy
upgrade works. In addition, particular
sprinkler management protocols were
required for the shopping centre in
order to minimise extended sprinkler
isolation. Also, end of line taps are
provided for each sprinkler zone to
allow the checking of water flow both
during commissioning and annually.
The fire-resistance levels within
the building have been generally
specified as 60 minutes. However,
in the case of 300PLUS® structural
RHODES WATERSIDE – FIRE RESISTANCE REQUIREMENTS SUMMARY
BUILDING ELEMENT
DTS
fire-resistant walls 180/180/180
floor slabs 180/180/180
beams 180/-/-
columns 180/-/-
sprinklers YES
steel members, it was successfully
argued that these members had
sufficient inherent fire resistance
associated with their surface area-to-
mass ratios to allow evacuation
of the particular areas. In addition, it
was recognised that as this building
is a highly redundant building, the
effects of an unsprinklered fire will
be localised. Accordingly, there is little
protection of structural steel members
within this building other than that
associated with ceilings
and architectural cladding, where
such is provided.
The following diagram gives
a schematic section through the
commercial part of the building:
ELEMENT REQUIREMENT
Alternative Solution
60/60/60
60/60/60
ksm ≤ 30m2/tonne if steel
or 60 /-/-
ksm ≤ 26m2/tonne if steel
or 60 /-/-
YES
West Lakes Re-Development
STEEL’S VERSATILITY ALLOWS ECONOMICAL
RE-DEVELOPMENT TODAY AND THE FLEXIBILITY
TO MAKE FURTHER CHANGES TOMORROW.

THE DESIGNERS
USED THE
VERSATILITY OFFERED
BY THE SUPERIOR
STRENGTH TO
WEIGHT RATIO OF
OWNER/DEVELOPER
STEEL FRAMING TO Deutsche Bank
Real Estate
MAKE SUBSTANTIAL
PROJECT MANAGER
CHANGES TO Clifton Coney Group

THE EXISTING ARCHITECT

Hames Sharley
SHOPPING MALL.
STRUCTURAL
ENGINEER
They did so with the knowledge Wallbridge & Gilbert

that any future changes are relatively BUILDER/PROJECT

easy to make as a steel frame
can be readily strengthened, and
modified by welding or bolting new
members to it.
The redevelopment of the West
Lakes shopping mall involved the
addition of a ground level carpark
below a cinema complex and adjacent
mall and food court areas. The entire
building extension was framed in
structural steel including the cinemas
with columns being placed within the
walls between cinemas and trusses
supporting the roof spanning the full
width of each cinema. It is important
to note that the acoustic requirements
for the cinema walls were achieved
by multiple layers of plasterboard
and this, by default, provided very
substantial thermal protection for the
300PLUS® steel columns located
within the walls.
The floor construction consisted
of composite slabs supported by
300PLUS® steel beams. It was
found that it was only necessary to
fire protect certain elements within
MANAGER
Baulderstone
Hornibrook
FIRE ENGINEERING
Warrington Fire
the building, principally some of the of a significant unsprinklered fire.
BUILDING CERTIFIER
primary beams and columns within However, it is very unlikely that Katnich Dodd
the promenade area adjacent to such a fire would develop given the
and providing direct support to the presence of sprinklers.
cinemas. A cross-section showing the Even a shielded sprinklered fire
promenade in relation to the seating would not generate sufficient heat to
tiers is shown above. detrimentally effect the supporting
Egress from the upper seating structural steel members.
tiers is via two alternative exits and
the cinemas can be evacuated in WESTLAKES RE-DEVELOPMENT – FIRE RESISTANCE REQUIREMENTS SUMMARY
several minutes. The space below
BUILDING ELEMENT ELEMENT REQUIREMENT
the seating tiers is used primarily for
storage. These areas as well as all
DTS Alternative Solution
other areas within the construction
type of construction type B
are sprinklered.
columns - carpark ksm < 26m2/tonne
As far as the cinemas were beams - carpark ksm < 30m2/tonne
concerned, evacuation of an upper columns - cinemas 120/-/- 60/-/- for some columns
tier was found to be able to be in promenade; remainder
ksm ≤ 26m2/tonne
achieved within a few minutes, as
beams - cinemas - /-/-* certain beams in
was evacuation of the lower tiers. promenade 60/-/-;
Evacuation can occur well before remainder ksm ≤ 30m2/
any supporting structural steelwork
tonne
sprinklers YES YES
would feel the temperature effects
* support of another part may require 120/-/-

FireSafe™ : Fire Safety Engineering by Design | Page 7

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This publication has been prepared by OneSteel Market Mills an operating business group of which OneSteel Manufacturing Pty Limited ABN 42 004 651 325, OneSteel NSW Pty Limited ABN 59 003 312 892,
OneSteel Wire Pty Limited ABN 59 000 010 873, OneSteel Trading Pty Limited ABN 50 007 519 646, OneSteel MBS Pty Limited ABN 76 096 273 979 are a part. Please note that any specifications or technical
data referred to in this publication are subject to change and/or variation or improvement without notice and no warranty as to their suitability for any use is made. Users of this publication - to ensure accuracy
and adequacy for their purposes - are requested to check the information provided in this publication to satisfy themselves as to its appropriateness and not to rely on the information without first doing so.
�����

Unless required by law, the company cannot accept any responsibility for any loss, damage or consequence resulting from the use of this publication. Photographs shown are representative only of typical applications,
current at March 2006. This publication is not an offer to trade and shall not form any part of the trading terms in any transaction. © Copyright 2002-2006. OneSteel Market Mills. Registered Trademarks of
OneSteel Market Mills: 300PLUS®. IKEA® is a registered trademark of IKEA® International Pty Ltd. Coles® and Bi-Lo® are registered trademarks of Coles Myer Ltd. Issue 3. Printed February 2006.

©Copyright 2002-2006. OneSteel Manufacturing Pty Limited ABN 42 004 651 325. e13400 www.onesteel.com