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Building information modelling (BIM) is widely considered to be leading the digital transformation of the AEC industry because of its data management capabilities among different stakeholders and across the building life-cycle. Fire safety engineering (FSE) is one of the disciplines that has been excluded for a long time from integrated approaches such as BIM, even though ensuring fire safety is a fundamental aspect of building performance. This paper presents a systematic literature review of BIM–FSE integration methodologies to highlight its potentialities for building life-cycle management and the digital transformation of the AEC domain. The findings show that the majority of BIM–FSE applications are focused on fire and evacuation simulations, followed by detection, monitoring and real-time emergency management. Technologies that are often involved in BIM-based fire safety solutions are CFD-based technologies, game- augmented and virtual reality, and the internet of things. Native formats are the most used for data sharing, while open standards still lack adequate data structures for FSE applications. The review highlights the benefits, embedded potentialities and limitations of the BIM–FSE integration in a decade of research studies. Future research directions for the digital transformation of FSE through BIM are proposed in a research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of Fire Technology is devoted to scientific studies of facade fires, including experiments, computer models, design, technology, and regulations. The building facade is one of the most important aspects of an architectural design, taking up around 15%-25% of the total construction cost. The 4th paper, from I Southwest Jiaotong University i and I Sichuan Fire Research Institute i performed multiple full-scale facade fire tests on a 12-story building that was covered by the expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam and a plaster layer. [Extracted from the article]

In the past three decades, fire engineering has experienced fast development worldwide. Fire regulations for building industry were moved from prescriptive description to performance-based specification. This trend started in the UK in the 1980s and spread to other western countries. Hong Kong closely followed the UK development and adopted the approach of performance-based design (PBD) for the Hong Kong International Airport and MTR stations in the early 1990s. The Government of Hong Kong SAR formally recognised the PBD approach in the prescriptive codes of practice in the mid-1990s and developed the performance-based code (PBC) in the 2000s. This PBC was promulgated in 2011. The evolution in fire engineering impacted the fire community in Mainland China. The State Key Laboratory of Fire Science (SKLFS) was established in University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 1991. Then fire science and fire engineering stepped into the fast development track. The building industry in Mainland China started to adopt the PBD approach in the early 2000s for the significant developments including large airport terminals, railway and metro stations, super high-rise buildings, and mega commercial centres. However, a structured PBC system is not available within the regulatory framework to date. Adoption of PBD approach is slowing down in recent years. This paper presents a review of fire engineering development in Hong Kong and Mainland China. The review focuses on the development of the PBC in Hong Kong, and the PBD approach and fire research in Mainland China in the past 30 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fire statistics mirror the outcome of fire prevention. Most fire statistics in Germany deal with the loss of life, value, and fire department actions (number of interventions, nozzles used, or alarm category like a false alarm). However, these results also represent the safety level the legislator has set through the prescriptive building regulations. The current statistics cannot evaluate the level of fire safety and the fulfillment or necessity of fire safety precautions. Today, expert judgment from firefighters is necessary to fill this gap. Here, we show the first evaluation of fire prevention and hazard protection measures by evaluating 900 potentially harming fires throughout Germany. In contrast to minor fires, these fires have advanced to the extent that they could potentially violate the protection objectives outlined in building regulations. The fire department association developed a questionnaire to evaluate the fire safety level and possibly reduce unnecessary fire safety regulations. One hundred twenty-three fire departments carried out the questionnaire, which are responsible for 25% of the German population. Fire prevention officers of the fire departments went to the scene after the fire was extinguished, and the fire safety concept of the building could be evaluated. We found a high rate of injuries, smoke spread, need for rescue by firefighters, and higher than expected firefighter response times after arrival at the scene. Surprisingly, smoke spread rates correlated with building height and not with building age. It was even possible to assess the risk of multiple casualties. Overall, the questionnaire results give insight into the current level of fire safety in existing buildings. Ways and rates for smoke and fire spread prove the importance of second escape routes and the influence of human misconduct. According to these results, current building code regulations are sufficient to prevent fire spread. On the other hand, smoke spreading is a severe threat to people's safety. For example, the data shown can be applied in Bayes nets or other risk calculations to optimize individual building designs or even governmental building codes concerning fire safety engineering. Based on our observations, science, and building codes, authorities could in the future establish a performance-based building code instead of the current prescriptive code. This paper presents the first approach in Germany to quantify the expert judgment of fire departments and use it as a source of knowledge for fire prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In fire safety engineering, cost–benefit analysis provides a systematic method to assess whether the projected benefits from a fire safety measure outweigh its costs. However, there remains a wide discrepancy between methods used in the field for cost–benefit analysis, as well as a lack of quantitative data on the costs and economic impact of fire protection in buildings. In a recent research project, a reference methodology was proposed based on Present Net Value evaluation and on a combination of specialized construction database, fire statistics, and numerical modeling for estimation of the cost components. This paper presents the application of the methodology to four case studies. The case studies allow describing the methodology, the collection of data, fire statistics, and loss estimation, as well as illustrating how the methodology can support decision-making when multiple alternatives are compared. Under the assumptions adopted for the single-family house and the residential timber building case studies, it is found that for every 1$ invested in sprinklers, $1.06 is saved. This benefit–cost ratio increases with increasing valuation of indirect losses and statistical value of life. Sensitivity analyses are provided to explore the robustness of the investment recommendations. The results of evaluations, adapted from the presented case studies with project-specific inputs, can support decision making for policy makers, insurance companies, and individual building owners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U-shaped structures are very common in the facade of buildings, which have a significant impact on fire spread. In this paper, the effect of the geometrical factor (α), the cross-sectional area (A), the height (H) on the upward fire spread in u-shaped structures are analyzed based on the fire spread rate (Vf) and the pressure difference between the top and the bottom (ΔP) through full-scale experiments and simulations. A dimensionless structure parameter α H / A is put forward to analyze the coupling effect of the structure size. It is found that Vf increases in the form of logarithmic function as α increases. ΔPmax increases in the form of exponential function as α increases; both Vf and ΔPmax decrease in the form of exponential function as A increases; Vf is positively correlated with H linearly. ΔPmax increases in the form of quadratic function as H increases; both Vf and ΔPmax increase in the form of Slogistic function as α H / A increases. When α H / A ≤ 17.2 or α H / A ≥ 38.8, α H / A has little effect on ΔPmax. The Vf in the non-overhead structure is very close to that in the overhead structure. This study can provide a theoretical guide for the fire protection design of u-shaped structures covered with insulation materials in practical engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Germany, building codes relating to fire safety are mainly prescriptive nature. Therefore, fire safety engineering is based on a combination of expert judgment and reverse engineering of prescriptive rules. This necessitates to connect the given objectives with the detailed prescriptive rules—if not already described within the law or bylaw. This paper proposes a table relating the fire safety objectives of European building regulations and their German counterpart with the prescriptive model building code in Germany. In addition, a risk curve for prenormative work is also given. This represents the prescriptive regulations concerning in terms of fatalities of a level acceptable to society and emphasizes the lower degree of acceptance of multiple fatalities occurring in a single incident. This residual risk limit represents the opinion of German firefighting associations. Data taken from the London area supports the suggested slope rate, as the level of safety in Britain is similar to that in Germany. The table of prescriptive building regulations and their corresponding objectives aids everyday planning decisions in the context of determining adequate compensation without missing out any essential aspects, such as firefighting and firefighter safety. The proposed table forms the basis of the current discussion of a European model performance-based model building code (PBC) within the European Committee for Standardization CEN. Moreover, the risk curve is the first to be discussed in Germany that takes into consideration the societal aspect. It forms an appropriate basis for performing fire safety risk calculations based on fault tree analysis or Bayes nets. The CEN working group for fire safety engineering discusses both aspects of the current development of a European, performance-based fire safety code. It is presented here for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estimation of design fires and thermal exposure conditions is an important step in structural fire engineering procedures. Mass timber, as a combustible material, may contribute to the fire intensity, yet there lacks methods to estimate design fires in compartments with exposed timber. This paper summarizes available experimental data on the contribution of exposed timber to heat release rate, describes a simple analytical method to evaluate this contribution, and discusses the effects on time–temperature curves and required firefighting resources based on a case study. Results show that the total heat release rate in compartments increases with the surface of exposed timber. This total heat release rate can be conservatively estimated using empirical relationships for ventilation-controlled burning rate and charring depth. In estimating gas temperature–time curves, both external flaming and extended fire duration combustion models can be applied to obtain an envelope of fire severity inside the compartment and for external spread. The proposed assessment approach provides a method to evaluate realistic design fires in timber buildings and to estimate the water supply required to put out these fires. Accurate modeling of the contribution of timber to fire severity is important for the design of mass timber construction as well as for the safety of firefighters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional design fires commonly considered in structural fire engineering, like the standard fire and Eurocode parametric fires, were developed several decades ago based on experimental compartments smaller than 100 m2 in floor area. These experiments led to the inherent assumption of flashover in design fires and that the temperatures and burning conditions are uniform in the whole of the compartment, regardless of its size. However, modern office buildings often have much larger open-plan floor areas (e.g. the Shard in London has a floor area of 1600 m2) where non-uniform fire conditions are likely to occur. This paper presents observations from a large-scale fire experiment x-ONE conducted inside a concrete farm building in Poland. The objective of x-ONE was to capture experimentally a natural fire inside a large and open plan compartment. With an open-plan floor area of 380 m2, x-ONE is the largest compartment fire experiment carried out to date. The fire was ignited at one end of the compartment and allowed to spread across a continuous wood crib (fuel load ~ 370 MJ/m2). A travelling fire with clear leading and trailing edges was observed spreading along 29 m of the compartment length. The flame spread rate was not constant but accelerated with time from 3 mm/s to 167 mm/s resulting in a gradually changing fire size. The fire travelled across the compartment and burned out at the far end 25 min after ignition. Flashover was not observed. The thermocouples and cameras installed along the fire path show clear near-field and far-field regions, indicating highly non-uniform spatial temperatures and burning within the compartment. The fire dynamics observed during this experiment are completely different to the fire dynamics reported in small scale compartments in previous literature and to the assumptions made in traditional design fires for structural design. This highlights the need for further research and experiments in large compartments to understand the fire dynamics and continue improving the safe design of modern buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reported in this paper is an exercise that contributes to the fire load database for fire severity analysis. The movable fuel load data was collected by the weight-inventory method from a specific building type, namely school buildings located within the metropolitan area of Sydney, Australia. The data was analysed to obtain statistical descriptions of fire load density in terms of probability density distributions. The results were compared with the similar data obtained from other countries. It was found that while basic statistical characteristics show similarities globally, some other characteristics, particularly the 90th percentile, may differ from one country to the other. This outcome suggests that fire load selection for design fires in fire safety engineering design and assessment should be better based on local data and a careful review of the unified approach in the international fire engineering guidelines is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additionally, Naser [[2]] presented a state-of-the-art review on AI-based methods and their applications in the fire engineering domain. For tunnel fires, Wu et al. [[5]] created an extensive database from numerical simulations on these fires and then used AI methods to explore such a database. With the rise of transformative technologies: such as artificial intelligence (AI), Internet-of-Things (IoT), robotics, sensors etc., the field of fire engineering and safety is embracing a new era to realize smart and fire-resilient structures and systems. [Extracted from the article]

The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the validity of the existing methods for analytically solving the governing equation of smoke filling in enclosures with floor leaks and growing fires. Since the complete form of the governing equation is inseparable, it can hardly be exactly solved analytically. Up to now, there are mainly five analytical solutions available in the literature. The first is derived by Mowrer (Fire Saf J 33: 93–114, 1999), the second is derived by Yamana and Tanaka (Fire Sci Technol 5: 31–40, 1985; Fire Sci Technol 5: 41–45, 1985), and the other three are derived by Delichatsios (Fire Saf J 38: 97–101, 2003; Fire Saf 39: 643–662, 2004). Among these solutions, the first has been incorporated into the SFPE handbook (SFPE handbook of fire protection engineering, 5th edn. Springer, New York, 2016), and one of the Delichatsios' solutions has been incorporated into the ISO standard (Fire safety engineering—Requirements governing algebraic equations—Smoke layers, 2006). These analytical solutions provide convenient ways for estimating the smoke-interface height. However, it should be noted that all of these solutions are approximate for the case of "floor leak & growing fire", so they must be used with caution. By comparing with the "exact" numerical solutions of the governing equation, errors of the five analytical solutions are calculated systematically. An absolute error contour plot and a relative error contour plot are made for each solution, which can be directly used to judge the validity of the solution. It is found that all the five analytical solutions sometimes produce considerable errors, and the error distribution characteristics are quite different from one solution to another. The error sources are analyzed. The analyses provide not only explanation for the error distribution characteristics but also deep insights into the analytical solutions. Based on the error contour plots made for each solution, the prediction of the corresponding solution can be corrected to a more accurate value. An example is presented to illustrate how to do this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the rapid urbanization and economic growth in China over the last four decades, the higher education in Fire Safety Science and Engineering has been developed and changed significantly. This work systemically reviews the origin and evolution of fire safety higher education history in China, from Fire Protection Technology (before the 1980s) to Fire Safety Science and Engineering (from about 1985 to the 2010s) and to Human-Oriented Public Safety and Smart Firefighting (from the 2010s to today). The scopes of fire safety discipline are discussed by introducing the requirements of firefighters, registered professional fire protection engineers and safety engineers in China. The courses and curriculum in fire safety higher education in representative universities are introduced and compared in detail. By comparing their undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, we explain the context of fire safety education in different universities. From a historical viewpoint, we introduce the unique features and the diversity developed in different institutes, based on the evolution of programme documents and first-hand teaching materials. This review aims to introduce the higher education systems of fire safety in China to the world and encourage more international collaboration with the Chinese fire safety science and engineering communities in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of Photovoltaic (PV) installations on the fire safety of buildings must be considered in all building projects where such energy systems are established. The holistic fire safety of the building largely depends on how the fire safety of the PV installation is considered by the different actors during the design and construction process. Research has therefore been undertaken to study how performance-based regulations in combination with the lack of national guidelines affect the overall fire safety considerations for PV installations in Norway. Four factors were found to govern to which extent PV installations are emphasised in the fire safety design phase: (1) whether the building was first of its kind as a pioneering building, (2) whether the building was built before or after the publication of the 2018 revision of the norm NEK 400, (3) The level of knowledge and experience of the fire safety consultant, which in turn affects the use of performance-based engineering tools and the level of detailing in the design and construction phases, and (4) The degree of integration in the building. The main goal of the study is to give an insight and a contribution to the development of in-depth knowledge on how fire safety design for PV installations on buildings is handled in Norway, which may also be relevant to other countries with similar performance-based regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Probabilistic fire simulation has been gaining interest in performance-based design approach. Very few evaluations on modelling performance can lead to unnecessary simulations which limit the understanding of fire engineering practitioners to select suitable model for a specific fire phenomenon. This study presents comparison of models' capabilities to recreate kitchen fire experiment through probabilistic assessments when there are various possibilities of fire spread can occur within the compartment. Such situation must consider the possible heat release rate curve from previously burning kitchen item, as this will effect on the possibility that other item igniting, and so enhance the intensity of fire. Determination of accumulated heat release rate data is assessed through the use of B-RISK and simplified model. Simulation input employs design fire for single furniture that was characterized through combination of peak growth and exponential decay functions using statistical analysis of fire severity characteristics from collated experimental data. Probabilistic correlation discloses that both models are able to produce results within an acceptable range of fire practice (> 20%), but B-RISK has better representation of possible cumulative heat release rate region than simplified model when more than 58% similarity of fire spread predictions among multiple items is achieved over different boundary ranges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing development of underwater equipment, electrical fire has become the focus of safety concern. To effectively guide the fire engineering design and incident management, this research proposes a priority assessment method for the electrical fire risks in typical Chinese underwater equipment cabins, which integrates the fault tree, modified analytic hierarchy process (MAHP), B-RISK fire zone model and Borda number ranking. Firstly, the method uses the fault tree to identify the fire sources (origins) and MAHP involving the numbers of accidents and regulations and the failure rate to quantify the fire occurrence possibility. Secondly, the B-RISK model is used to predict and rank the fire severities induced by fire spread. Finally, a priority ranking of fire risk is achieved using the Borda number combining fire occurrence possibility and fire severity. The case study on a typical underwater power station show that the fire occurrence possibility obtained by MAHP is highly consistent with the result of traditional AHP. The B-RISK simulations can identify the fire spread paths and thus the causes of fire expansion. The rankings of fire occurrence possibility and fire severity do not consistent with each other therefore the Borda number can better evaluate the priority of fire risks which builds the foundations for potential fire engineering assessment and design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modelling of common corridor smoke control systems in residential buildings is one of the most frequently undertaken performance-based assessments by fire engineers in the UK. However, there is limited understanding of how the deterministic assumptions provided in modelling guidance are derived, and to what extent these are representative of a range of possible outcomes. To place these assumptions into context, the Monte Carlo method is applied using the zone modelling software B-RISK for an exemplar residential arrangement. Distribution functions are adopted to inform inputs for fire parameters, sprinkler performance, and occupant behavioural characteristics. An output distribution for the corridor smoke clearance time is determined and compared to the clearance time of an equivalent set of deterministic simulations applying the assumptions of modelling guidance. The probabilistic study indicates that modelling guidance assumptions typically result in a scenario severity greater than the 99th percentile of possible outcomes. The work also considers the sensitivity of individual input parameters, ranking these based on their impact. These sensitivity analyses highlight the importance of occupant behavioural assumptions around the pre-evacuation time and door open time, and the significance of fire parameters including the elevation of the fuel bed, soot yield, and fire growth rate. Sprinkler parameters are shown to have a lesser impact on the corridor clearance time. The work therefore provides practitioners with an indication of which parameters are worth considering in greater detail when assessing scenario sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fundamental construct for performance-based design for fire safety in use today has not significantly changed since the early 1990s. While the current construct has seen some success, performance-based design for fire safety is not as broadly accepted as performance-based design approaches in other building-related engineering disciplines. To advance performance-based design for fire safety, it is proposed to move towards a sociotechnical systems approach. This means changing the starting point from a focus on fire safety objectives as a unique property of buildings, infrastructure, or operations, and considering fire safety as one of several sociotechnical objectives. It also means focusing fire safety analysis and design on system attributes which can be controlled through design, and less on variables for which control is unlikely or not possible. As part of this, consideration of fire safety systems performance should be considered in terms of a 'fail-safe' perspective, in which there is less focus on all possible events that could occur, and more on preventing those which could result in unacceptable performance. Evaluation of building fire safety as a sociotechnical systems problem would also need to consider the interactions of all components that contribute to safety over the lifetime of the system, including in-use safety system management and system performance over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to reveal the evolution of ceiling jet temperature characteristics beneath curved ceiling in two-dimensional view, experimental and theoretical studies were conducted to analyze the vertical temperature profile and longitudinal temperature attenuation beneath a curved ceiling of a semicircular tunnel. The temperature profile was first measured from experiments carried out in the model-scale semicircular tunnel. The relationship between temperature and the horizontal positions is described by an empirical model. A formula describing the thickness of the thermal boundary layer is proposed, based on the vertical distribution of smoke temperature. An engineering model for the longitudinal attenuation of the gas temperature with different fire plume types at impingement region is established in terms of conservation equations. After validation, model predictions show a good agreement with trend proposed by former literature and the relative error of prediction is found to be within 10%. Two-dimensional prediction for temperature profile beneath semicircle ceiling centerline was proposed. It was noted that two-dimensional prediction model could predict majority of measured data within 20% relative error even though some fluctuation, which could be applied to the fire protection engineering in semicircular tunnel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interest in probabilistic methodologies to demonstrate structural fire safety has increased significantly in recent times. However, the evaluation of the structural behavior under fire loading is computationally expensive even for simple structural models. In this regard, machine learning-based surrogate modeling provides an appealing way forward. Surrogate models trained to simulate the behavior of structural fire engineering (SFE) models predict the response at negligible computational expense, thereby allowing for rapid probabilistic analyses and design iterations. Herein, a framework is proposed for the probabilistic analysis of fire exposed structures leveraging surrogate modeling. As a proof-of-concept a simple (analytical) non-linear model for the capacity of a concrete slab and an advanced (numerical) model for the capacity of a concrete column are considered. First, the procedure for training surrogate models is elaborated. Subsequently, the surrogate models are developed, followed by a probabilistic analysis to evaluate the probability density functions for the capacity. The results show that fragility curves developed based on the surrogate model agree with those obtained through direct sampling of the computationally expensive model, with the 10–2 capacity quantile predicted with an error of less than 5%. Moreover, the computational cost for the probabilistic studies is significantly reduced by the adoption of surrogate models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fire is a chaotic and extreme phenomenon. While the past few years have witnessed the success of integrating machine intelligence (MI) to tackle equally complex problems in parallel fields, we continue to shy away from leveraging MI to study fire behavior or to evaluate fire performance of materials and structures. In order to advocate for the use of MI, this review showcases the merit of adopting mechanistically-informed MI to answer some of the burning questions, multi-dimensional and ill-defined problems fire engineers and scientists are facing. This review also sympathizes with the fact that a traditional curriculum does not often cover principles of MI and hence it starts by introducing a number of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques such as deep learning, metaheuristics, decision trees, random forest, support vector machines etc. Then, this review details recommended procedures associated with preparing databases and carrying out a proper MI-tailored fire analysis via examples; to enable researchers and practitioners from implementing MI with ease. Towards the end of this review, a number of concerns and challenges are identified to stimulate the curiosity of interested readers and accelerate future research works within fire engineering and sciences (FES). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simple framework for setting risk tolerability limits is proposed following a literature review of risk acceptance in fire safety engineering and a feedback round with international fire safety professionals. The framework provides practical guidance for the application of international fire safety guidance, such as the recently published UK guidance document on probabilistic risk assessment for the fire design of buildings, PD 7974-7:2019, which provides a state-of-the-art framework to assess adequate safety for complex fire engineering designs. However, the application of this guidance document is hindered by two main constraints: (1) PD7974-7:2019 requires risk tolerability limits to be set, but lacks guidance on defining them for a specific building project, and (2) no reference case studies are given that demonstrate the application of PRA methods to fire engineering design. In order to help fill this gap, a risk tolerability framework is developed and proposed herein. Finally, it is applied to a reference case study of a UK office building. Considering the developed framework, further research needs are identified. It is expected that the proposed risk tolerability framework and the presented reference case study can support the application of PRA to fire engineering design and ease stakeholder communication on setting risk tolerability limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]