Compliance: passive fire protection
Implementing compliance… Paints & coatings There has been an increased awareness regarding the impacts for fires, both in the finance industry as well as within governments. This is leading to newer regulations and evolving conformity regimes. Developers are now asking contractors about evidence of fire safety. With changing supply chains due to realignments of global relationships, specific queries are being fielded by manufacturers and traders of building materials about traceability of materials. Continuing the series about ‘implementation’ of passive fire protection, AB H I SH EK CHHAB RA , Business Development Manager, Thomas BellWright Consultants, takes a deep dive into interior finishing and structural fire protection as two different applications of passive fire protection, but with some common pitfalls.
Recently the General Command of Civil Defense in the UAE issued a memo urging industry partners to adhere to the “UAE Fire and Life Safety Code of Practice” and to adhere to the requirements of the circular issued in June 2023 which brings about some amends to how fire-stopping is to be implemented and inspected. These were further to workshops discussing improvement of internal firestopping in buildings undertaken in the last 12 months in the UAE. This is a clear sign of how government bodies are getting more involved in, and having a closer watch on, ensuring fire safety regulatory frameworks.
Different types of adhesion
46 Fire Middle East Magazine • August 2023
PA I N TS & COATI N G S These are omnipresent whenever there is anything being built. Everywhere from manufacturing locations to construction sites, and our offices and homes too. Drums or powders with mixers are often a result of a lot of precise research and development to create optimum performance as well as look and feel. Often the manufacturing locations producing these chemicals operate under strict health and safety conditions as the simple looking experiments in beakers, petri dishes and test-tubes potentially become high hazard processes when the volumes of these ingredients become huge. What looks like a tiny hiss in a beaker is potentially a large explosion inside a factory. While there is a massive spread of performance and behaviour of paints and coatings; there are a couple of similarities among all of them. While they could be used to control the reaction to fire behaviour on one side or to enhance the fire resistance capability of structural elements and other systems; their production and the form in which they are available and transported are often very similar. But there is a key aspect related to using these which is often insufficiently understood. And this has to do with how these paints and coating actually do their jobs. If you consider the image below, you can probably grasp that application methodology and the processes by which the chemicals create a hold on the surface can vary a lot. These are complex actions, requiring a lot of precision and control in terms of the environment where the coating is applied as well as, of course, how it is done. This leads to a key variable which is the state and type of substrate on to which the paints and coatings are applied. And, of course, the knowledge and precision expected of the applicators.