PASSIVE FIRE PROTECTION | GLASS
GLAZING THE GAP IN FIRE SAFETY
Brett Shinn, Kevin Zachariah and Sandy Dweik of Thomas Bell-Wright International Consultants, Dubai branch, explore the use of glazing for passive fire protection Glass, or simply glazing systems, are an enormously significant part of our everyday lives, even if we often don’t notice it. The types, specifications and applications of glazing systems are boundless. There are, for example, glazing systems used in infinitely long partitions and doors in an airport terminal, in curtainwall which separates an office from an atrium, a sliding door which separates a parking garage from a storefront, or simply a vison panel in a warehouse or fire-escape door. To consider glazing in a passive fire protection capacity, we must remember its primary function: to separate fire from one compartment to another in the form of either a dynamically operated door, static partition or static skylight. Then, we must consider how that function 24
FIRE MIDDLE EAST | OCTOBER 2024
is measured or evaluated, and how the performance of glass exposed to fire applies to its end use application. The short answer to measuring performance is fire testing.
Local standards
The UAE Fire & Life Safety Code of Practice (2018), as an example, outlines the requirements for Glazing Tests and Acceptance in Chapter 1 – §5.3 and provides context on required performance for a given end use. Similarly, the Saudi Building Code outlines the requirements for glazing in doors in section 716.5.5.1. Rather uniquely but also quite handily, the UAE code allows for testing to either American, British or European testing standards. The standards differ in subtle ways and some of their procedures may
bias themselves to testing of a certain type of sample, but they all revolve around two primary performance metrics: integrity and insulation, both measured in time. Integrity, simply put, is a measurement of impermeability and the resistance to allowing passage of flame from one side to the other. Insulation is the resistance to temperature increase on the unexposed (non-fire) side. In what may be a matter of opinion, the testing standards which lend themselves the best to glazing testing and performance are the European (EN) variety, in large part because each of those standards has built in measurement provisions that provide extension allowances specifically for glazing systems. Called a Direct Field of Application (DIAP), these are included directly within a test