2 research outputs found
Fire performance of residential shipping containers designed with a shaft wall system
seven story building made of shipping containers is planned to be built in Barcelona, Spain. This study
mainly aimed to evaluate the fire performance of one of these residential shipping containers whose walls
and ceiling will have a shaft wall system installed.
The default assembly consisted of three fire resistant gypsum boards for vertical panels and a mineral wool
layer within the framing system. This work aimed to assess if system variants (e.g. less gypsum boards, no
mineral wool layer) could still be adequate considering fire resistance purposes.
To determine if steel temperatures would attain a predetermined temperature of 300-350ÂşC (a temperature
value above which mechanical properties of steel start to change significantly) the temperature evolution
within the shaft wall system and the corrugated steel profile of the container was analysed under different
fire conditions.
Diamonds simulator (v. 2020; Buildsoft) was used to perform the heat transfer analysis from the inside
surface of the container (where the fire source was present) and within the shaft wall and the corrugated
profile. To do so gas temperatures near the walls and the ceiling were required, so these temperatures were
obtained from two sources: (1) The standard fire curve ISO834; (2) CFD simulations performed using the
Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). Post-flashover fire scenarios were modelled in FDS taking into account
the type of fuel present in residential buildings according to international standards.
The results obtained indicate that temperatures lower than 350ÂşC were attained on the ribbed steel sheet
under all the tested heat exposure conditions. When changing the assembly by removing the mineral wool
layer, fire resistance was found to still be adequate. Therefore, under the tested conditions, the structural
response of the containers would comply with fire protection standards, even in the case where insulation
was reduced.Postprint (published version