Fire engineering properties in the IFC building product model and mapping to BRANZFIRE

The Industry Foundation Class (or IFC) Model is a standardised, object-oriented “building product model” that provides an electronic description of buildings. Entities are defined in the model to represent building elements with their associated properties. This paper reviews the latest release of the IFC Model considering entities and properties related to fire engineering. The paper goes on to examine how these entities and properties can be mapped to the input requirements of the BRANZFIRE fire simulation softwar

The New Zealand Building Act 2004 and the involvement of the New Zealand Fire Service

Prior to 1992, fire safety regulations in New Zealand operated under a prescriptive regime. Such prescriptive requirements provided direct guidance in specific terms for those designing buildings and in effect dictated design criteria. In December 1991 a new Building Act was passed in law, replacing the existing prescriptive fire safety code, NZ Standard 1900, Chapter 51. In doing so, it allowed for performance-based design to be carried out for the first time in New Zealand’s history and offered designers a less restrictive design environment. The changes implemented in 1991 also set out mandatory performance requirements in the Building Code2 that must be complied with by the designer. Those relating to fire safety are outlined in the C clauses and contain four categories: C1 Outbreak of fire, C2 Means of escape, C3 Spread of fire and C4 Structural stability during fire. Assessing compliance with these performance requirements and their enforcement lies with the Building Consent Authorities (BCA’s), formerly known as Territorial Authorities (TA’s). They must be satisfied on reasonable grounds that the provisions of the Building Code would be met if the building work was completed in accordance with the plans and specifications submitted with the building consent application. At the discretion of the BCA, a performance-based design can be passed to an independent fire engineer for peer review, prior to the BCA issuing consent

Smoke management issues in buildings with large enclosures

Buildings that provide sporting, entertainment, and leisure facilities (e.g. sports arenas, exhibition halls, etc) can often contain large enclosed spaces or voids. In the event of a fire, these buildings often require the use of a smoke management system to provide conditions for safe means of escape for the building occupants. This paper raises a range of issues relating to smoke management in buildings with large enclosed spaces, including smoke management methods, design scenarios and some simple calculation methods. Experience of actual installed systems in real buildings has led to concerns on the efficacy of some smoke management systems, especially over the lifetime of a building. This paper discusses some of these concerns, real examples of sources of failure, and the importance of proper documentation, commissioning, maintenance and testing of these systems. As a way of addressing these concerns, a process validation methodology is presented to evaluate the design, the designer, the implementation of the design, and the long-term management, operation and maintenance of such systems

Transfer of architectural data from the IFC model to a fire simulation software tool

A standardized, object-oriented building product model for buildings is introduced that can be used as a means of electronic exchange between various software tools. The ability to transfer architectural data between a commercially available computer-aided design (CAD) program and a widely available zone fire simulation tool illustrates the applicability of this model in fire engineering. This article describes the software developed to interpret the building product model and the test buildings used to verify the exchange process. In general the building geometry, topology, and other properties can be transferred satisfactorily but some inconsistencies exist due to the structure of the building product model, the CAD implementation of the model, and the simplifications required by the zone modeling approach

Fire emergencies and people

How we behave in a fire can be due to many factors such as familiarity with the building and its alarm systems as Michael Spearpoint from the Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering at the University of Canterbury explains

The effect of pre-movement on evacuation times in a simulation model

The evacuation time of a building in an emergency can be broken down into a number of constituent times including the pre-evacuation time and the travel time. This paper examines how distributions of pre-evacuation times affect the occupant travel time and hence their effect on the evacuation time in the Simulex model. A simple scenario is assessed mathematically and compared with the results from Simulex with further simulations carried out on a somewhat more complex scenario. Where we expect the pre-evacuation time to be characterised by a distribution of values simply adding the maximum pre-evacuation time and the movement time over-estimates the evacuation time. Furthermore, when the preevacuation distribution is small the travelling and queuing effects dominate the simulated evacuation time. When the pre-evacuation distribution is large then travel and queuing effects are not so important and it is the pre-evacuation time that dominates. Finally the paper examines some aspects of the Simulex model in situations where there is a high occupant density in a space

The development of a web-based database of rate of heat release measurements using a mark-up language

The application of most computer-based fire models is dependent on the user supplying the rate of heat release data that describes the design fire for a chosen scenario. Having access to a database of rate of heat release measurements assists the user in making their selection. The ability to use that data in a wide variety of general and specialised computer tools enables effective use of the data. This paper examines the current developments in database implementation using mark-up languages and how they can be applied to engineered fire protection design. In particular, the increased use of XML technology as a method of information storage, retrieval and manipulation in several engineering related fields are discussed since these developments are very likely to have an impact on fire engineering. An XML-based schema for the implementation of a database of single and multiple item rate of heat release measurements is presented and an online database has been created using the schema. The database and its underlying schema can be viewed in a web browser. The database can also be queried via a client program using broad search criteria; the relevant matches can be viewed graphically and a selected dataset can be extracted in a format suitable for further processing. A number of transformations have been developed that allow a selected dataset to be converted from XML to an alternate format suitable for commonly used fire models or more general computer software tools. Although the database currently operates as a stand-alone entity, the work is also aimed towards integration with the developments taking place in interoperability between a wide range of engineering-related software tools. This paper shows where this web-based database fits in with these developments

Recent BRANZFIRE enhancements and validation

This article is based on a presentation given at the SFPE New Zealand Chapter Annual General Meeting in November 2007 and describes the result of projects carried out by students and staff at the University of Canterbury in conjunction with Colleen Wade at BRANZ. The article can only provide a short summary of each piece of work and a list of references is given so that the reader can investigate a topic in further detail. The BRANZFIRE simulation software has been under development since 1996 predominately by Colleen Wade (2004). It is a multi-compartment fire zone model including flame spread routines. It also models sprinkler/detector activation, mechanical extract/supply tenability assessment, glass fracture, oxygen-constrained burning. The software is commonly used by fire engineering in New Zealand and is also occasionally used by the international community

Properties for fire engineering design in New Zealand and the IFC building product model

This paper examines the information needs of Fire Engineers and relates those needs to the IFC Building Product Model. It identifies what is already provided in the IFC 2x Model and how in particular it corresponds with the New Zealand Approved Document Acceptable Solution C/AS1. The paper then demonstrates how Property Set Definitions can be used to extend the scope of the IFC Model for use by Fire Engineers

Fire detection

This article examines the various types of technology used in modern buildings, tunnels, vehicles etc. to detect unwanted and potentially life-threatening fires. In selecting a detection system there is a need to balance responsiveness, reliability, cost and the potential for false alarms (sometimes referred to as ‘nuisance activations’) and no one type of system provides an optimum solution. The detection of fires involves a whole range of fundamental scientific principles as well as the application of advanced technological developments