Improving fire safety tests for the construction industry

Many existing fire tests are based on building codes that specify construction requirements according to particular materials and construction standards rather than on performance criteria. What is more, such standard tests only provide fire engineers with pass/fail assessments, depriving them of a continuous performance evaluation for fire safety designs.

With this in mind, the EU-funded FIRE TOOLS (Simulation of fire technical properties of products and construction barriers to support efficient product development in industry) project is developing a novel methodology and tools for use in performance-based fire safety design.

To achieve this, five early-stage researchers (ESRs) are being trained to advance fire safety engineering, overcome challenges in fire simulation innovation, and reduce barriers between industry and academia. Research projects are concentrating on the development of prediction methodologies for a range of fire behaviours, namely those for solid and composite materials used in building products, content and barriers.

Work began by mapping the state of the art in the field and identifying gaps in existing modelling efforts. ESRs prepared a comprehensive report based on the results.

Until now, research has focused on composite and system levels. ESRs are turning their attention to obtaining fundamental material parameters at small scale. These parameters are required to predict the fire performance results of building materials, products and barriers.

Overall, FIRE TOOLS will enable wider adoption and implementation of performance-based fire safety designs. This will ultimately help remove existing barriers in current building codes.