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service risers
Abstract
The service cupboards, located in communal areas of dwelling blocks of flats or student accommodation
facilities are a typical example of concealed spaces, where a fire could occur and develop. Requiring easy access
for maintenance, it is often the case that service riser cupboards are built on the main evacuation routes, within
the stairwells or in the common hallways. Therefore, the walls which separate the service area and the egress
paths are required to be fire rated so that in the event of a fire outbreak, all the building occupants should be
evacuated in safe conditions. This article purpose is to demonstrate that a proposed design solution meets the
standard fire regulations regarding the fire resistance of compartmentation walls, using performance based
design calculations.
Keywords: service riser cupboards, suppression system response time, fire resistance, ceiling jets.
1 Introduction
Any change in the system of the fire protection of a building will have an impact on the fire strategy.
After some refurbishment works being carried out for a student accommodation building, the walls which
separate the service riser cupboards and the stairwells have been replaced. The purpose of this paper is to assess
the level of fire resistance achieved by the new separation walls, which have not been certified by fire resistance
test evidence, taking into account the other, supplementary, fire protection measures installed in the building.
Based on the basic principles and calculation methods, the assessment method is an example of the application
of the simple engineering tools available in the fire safety literature in order to demonstrate compliance with the
regulations for fire separation walls.
2 Fire stategy
1
3 Calculation methodology
3.1 Assumptions
The service riser cupboards have a volume of 4.70m3 for the floors from 1 to 8 and approximately
3
5.20m at the lower levels. The amount of oxygen available for combustion would be limited in case of a fire
occurrence. For this analysis it will be assumed, in a pessimistic manner that a fire will develop with a medium
growth rate and with adequate ventilation to allow its growth. A sensitivity study is also carried out assuming a
slow growth rate. The heat release rate varies with the time sqared and the growth rate is given by the
assimptotic coefficient alpha [2,3].
Alpert [4,5] correlations for ceiling jets have been used to estimate the required fire size to activate the
temperature detectors. Assuming the maximum radius from the centre of the fire to a detector head, being 1,5m
and the ceiling height, h = 3,0m, one can calculate the ceiling jet smoke temperature and the velocity using the
following formulae:
2/3
5.38(𝑄̇ /𝑟)
𝑇𝑔 = (1)
ℎ
2
To satisfy the fire resistence requirents, the material around a steel-stud element should prevent the steel
from reaching 550ºC for the time required. Structural steel normally starts to lose loadbearing capacity around
temperatures in the region of 550ºC- 620ºC. Therefore, in order to assess the wall assembly resistance in case of
a fire, it can be acceptable to maintain the steel profiles, within the wall, below the critical temperature range.
Table 1 Thermal properties of the materials used for the steel covering
Conductivity Density
Specific heat
3
Material k capacity ρ
[W/mK] c [kg/m³]
[kJ/kgK]
4 Results
A fire occuring within the service riser cupboard will develop until the suppression system actuation.
Table 2 is a summary of the calculations results for the two possible fire scenarios considered here. It is shown
that the fire, in the worst case scenario, assumed to have a slow growth rate, can only develop for about 6
minutes, prior to the suppression media being released. If a medium growth rate it is assumed for fire, the heat
release rate is slightly higher, but the fire is detected after less than 3 minutes. In the last column of Table 2 it is
plotted the corresponding temperature on the ISO 834 fire curve at the time moments when the suppression
system goes off. If the riser wall was exposed to the standard fire curve, which would be the heating regime as in
a furnace fire test, the maximum fire temperatures, retrieved for each of the previously calculated suppression
response times are still below the the critical temperature range for unprotected steel.
Table 2 Fire size at the suppression system actuation
The time-temperature curves for the medium growing fire and the slow growing fire are plotted in Fig.2
at the left and right side, respectively. The dashed lines show the the detector temperature rise in time.
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rate fire is considered to develop up until the gaseous suppression activates, the wall temperatures will be well
within tolerances with the plywood portion fixed to the steel supports remaining at little more than ambient
temperature both at this time and for a significant period thereafter.
Fig. 3 Temperatures within the steel covering panels after 160 sec of fire exposure
Fig. 4 Temperatures within the the steel covering panels after 400 sec of fire exposure
5
Fig. 5 Temperatures within the the steel covering panels after 900 sec of fire exposure
5 Conclusion
It can be concluded that for the affected service riser cupboards the addition of gaseous suppression,
together with the thermal performance of the wall build-up will give a level of confidence that a fire in these
areas would not grow to such an extent that the integrity, insulation and loadbearing of the wall adjoining the
stairwells would be affected.
REFERENCES
[1] SR EN 1991-1-2/NA. (2006). Romanian Standards Association, Bucharest, Romania.
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[12] Insulation Shop Ltd. (2018).Thermal properties of Versapanel. Retrieved January 20, 2018 from
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