Walls, R.S.

Towards a structural fire loading code for buildings in South Africa

Abstract eng:
South Africa currently lacks a structural fire loading and basis for design code for buildings, and this paper discusses a framework based on international codes regarding how this could be created. The work includes (a) technical details relating to the evaluation of international performancebased design options, (b) proposals for addressing challenges faced in the structural fire design community, and (c) opinion regarding providing pragmatic but safe guidelines. With failures in fire often being due to layouts or construction details not adequately captured by the standard fire it is proposed that at all levels of code implementation additional philosophies be provided for addressing such details, beyond those in current codes. Typically the ISO 834 standard fire curve is adopted in South Africa when any design or testing work is actually carried out, but it is not common to find the use of ‘real’ or parametric fire loadings. A comparison of available parametric fire curves is presented considering the Eurocode (EN 1991-1-2), the modified Eurocode (based on New Zealand guidelines) and fire dynamics software (OZone), along with the standard fire (ISO 834). The level of harmony between codes is investigated by briefly comparing heat transfer equations which convert time-temperature curves into usable structural design properties.

Contributors:

Botha, M.

Publisher:

Taylor and Francis Group, London, UK

Conference Title:

Insights and Innovations in Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Computation

Conference Title:

Sixth International Conference on Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Computation

Conference Venue:

Cape Town, South Africa

Conference Dates:

2016-09-05 / 2016-09-07