Quantification of enhanced fire severity in modern buildings

Abstract

Modern materials used in the interior as well as exterior of a building pose new fire safety challenges. From an interior perspective, the traditional materials such as natural wood and fabrics are being increasingly replaced by modern synthetic alternatives, which are typically petroleum-based and are hence, more susceptible to fire. Similarly, from an exterior perspective, current building façade systems are predominantly based on combustible materials such as aluminum composite panels as opposed to the traditional non-combustible materials such as terracotta, concrete, and brick masonry. Modern materials offer significantly improved performance in certain aspects compared to their traditional alternatives—for instance, most petroleum-based polymers are much better thermal insulators compared to concrete or masonry and hence provide significantly better energy efficiency to a building. However, these modern materials are also significantly more susceptible to being vehicles of fire spread and hence pose challenges to the designers and engineers, where they have to find a balance in this pareto optimal choice of modern versus traditional. The current work examines this issue and presents methods to quantify fire severity of modern buildings both from interior and exterior perspectives. It is clear that the downside of modern materials is too prominent to be ignored, and some of the estimation methods must be factored in the modern building design philosophy.