4 ijaers feb 2016 15 hot ice crystal sheet for fire control in highrise buildings

International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Science (IJAERS)

[Vol-3, Issue-2, Feb- 2016] ISSN: 2349-6495

Hot Ice Crystal Sheet for Fire Control in Highrise Buildings Prof. Dr. A. W. Dhawale1, Abhinav Rai2

1

HOD Civil Engineering Department, J.S.PM’s Imperial College of Engineering And Research, Wagholi, India 2 Post Graduate Student of J.S.P.M’s Imperial College of Engineering And Research, Wagholi, India

Abstract—This paper addresses the approach to minimize the losses of life and property during extreme fire hazards in the high rise buildings. The basic principle behind this is to restrict the fire in a particular zone such that it will not spread in vertical as well as horizontal direction in between the floors. The aim of this study is to restrict the fire spread which will lead to the increase in efficiency of emergency response team by providing them a confined target to work on.

Fire in a building can be divided into two main zones i.e.

Red zone and Black zone. Red zone is the point of origin of the fire where temperature is very high and smoke is generated at increased rates so this zone needs speedy emergency evacuation plans. Black zone is the area where temperature of the smoke is very less as compared to Red zone so it can be considered as the secondary target during the rescue operations.

For achieving safety; performance based design is required. In this paper the use of Hot Ice Crystal sheet is discussed for fire control. The argument is also made regarding the comparative performance of the above mentioned technique with the rest.

Keywords—Black zone, Disaster management, Emergency provisions, Fire protection, hot Ice Crystal Sheet, Performance based design, Red zone, Smoke generation.

I. INTRODUCTION Being one of the largest countries in the world and possessing one of the largest populations in the world; India still has lots of areas where it is lagging behind in comparison with the topmost economies in the world.

As we know India has a population about 1.3 billion and is increasing at an unbelievable rates. Since, the availability of the land is limited and demands for their accommodation and various other needs is increasing ;people are opting for various high rise buildings and skyscrapers for their residential, commercial, industrial, manufacturing and various other needs. With the increasing heights of the buildings and due to use of various advanced building

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materials and services nowadays; enormous risks related to it is also increasing and one of the most important risk related to it is risk of life and property due to fire hazards in high rise buildings.

According to India Risk Survey 2015 by Pinkerton and FICCI; the risk due to fire hazards is shown below:

Fig. 1: Overall Risk Rankings These risks are arising due to the advancement of the building materials to be used and due to provision of various luxurious services depending on the type of building which leads to increased loads on the power supplies of the building.

National Fire Code does not contain the risk related to the latest building services so the steps to mitigate these risks are not present in them which minimizes the efficiency of the rescue operations due to insufficient data. Therefore; these risks should be analyzed with greater accuracy and steps should be identified to mitigate the same which would lead to increase the efficiency of emergency rescue operations.

“Precaution is better than Prevention” this justifies the entire safety norms and this should be taken care with utmost priority in the civil engineering works. Thus, the structures should be designed by keeping in mind all these risks related to fire during construction of the buildings.

This would lead to a performance based design and will enable fire safety officers to execute their evacuation strategies with greater efficiency.

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International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Science (IJAERS) II. OBJECTIVES Fire hazards are one of the biggest threats and it results in great loss of life & property. The main threats during fire hazards are: spreading of the fire between different floors in vertical direction and reduction in the visibility due to increasing smoke volume. Therefore, the main aim of this study is: 1. Fire Control (To restrict fire spread into a particular zone) III. SCOPE OF STUDY In this study we will be studying various risks related to fire in high rise buildings and causes responsible for it and suggest the probable safety techniques to minimize it. This study shall include the enhancement in the pre-design stage of the structural members which will enable us to execute the emergency plans with maximum efficiency at the time of fire hazards. The motive of this study is to control the fire and smoke which are the biggest threat at the time of emergency.

The main motive behind fire and life safety design is to: 1. Protect the life of the building residents and visitors, working personnel and emergency response team.

2. Protect building facilities and services Overall this study will be very useful for the previous, ongoing, and upcoming future construction projects of high rise buildings to minimize the risk related to fire hazards and to minimize the possible losses of life and property due to the same and also the enhancement of the structural members at the pre-design stage.

IV. LITERATURE REVIEW Fang li and James Antell(2008) Studied “Fire safety” in Pearl River Tower, Guangzhou and concluded that pre-design stage of high rise construction projects should be given utmost care and performance based approach should be adopted using computer based fire models ,proper architectural design of ceilings should be done to locate exact places to fix sprinkler heads and smoke detectors to minimize losses due to fire hazards.

Jon M. Evenson and Aaron F. Vanney(2008) Studied about “Crisis response plans and life safety enhancement range” by using technology driven(Elevator Assisted Evacuation) in “ Burj Khalifa, Dubai”. The author concluded the steps to be taken by the crisis response teams at emergency period by using advanced techniques such as; Elevator assisted evacuation to increase the efficiency of emergency response team.

William F. Blackley(2006)

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[Vol-3, Issue-2, Feb- 2016] ISSN: 2349-6495

Studied about Elderly residential high rise safety by means of staff training, educational programs, planning and follow up surveys. In this study proper training about all the possible fire hazards is given to the residents and suitable egress and evacuation techniques are provided to minimize the risk. The author took follow up surveys by different experts and emergency response teams and concluded the sequential steps of egress at the time of fire.

V. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The methodology adopted for this study is carrying out case study of high rise structures in context of their fire safety .Detailed study of different structures are carried out and the possible fire accidents and losses has been forecasted and are generalized and steps are provided to mitigate them. Experimental approach is adopted to develop the Hot Ice Crystal Sheet and to check its working.

It has been observed that the two main threats at the time of fire hazards that should be taken care with utmost priority are; Fire, temperature and smoke.

It has been found out by the case study of Pearl River Tower that the general tenability conditions that have to be faced by the occupants by considering breathing height of 2 metres are extremely severe and are listed below: Table 1: Tenability Performance criteria

Source: Fang Li and James Antell ( Fire protection strategies for energy efficient highrise building 2008) On the basis of above two main threats the entire accident zone can be divided into two main zones i.e; Red zone and Black zone (as discussed in the abstract above ).Therefore, different emergency plans should be developed for the different zones . Due to high temperature of Red zone they are considered as the primary target for the emergency response team and the Black zone is treated as secondary target.

1 . Red Zone(Fire zone) This zone is the source of fire and hence chances of losses are maximum in this case due to the high temperature present in this zone. The enhancement suggested other than the normal provisions like sprinklers, etc are as below: Enhancement: Hot Ice Crystal Sheet

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International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Science (IJAERS)

Fig. 2: Hot Ice Crystal Sheet As shown above, Hot Ice Crystal sheets can be used to limit or concentrate the fire in a particular zone so as to make it simple for the emergency response teams to evacuate the occupants. These sheets does not provide horizontal access to fire to spread from one floor to another as the sheet acts as a barrier between the fire and the timber door and does not allow the fire to reach till the timber door hence restricts it spread to great extent. This enhancement is also very advantageous over the rest techniques as its probable cost will be low as compared to the rest fire proof doors and it will provide a barrier between the timber part of the door and the fire. It will also reduce the use of timber by minimizing the thickness of the timber door .

This restricted and confined zone consists of the fire source with smoke which has less temperature as that of Red zone.

It has been seen that most number of casualties happens due to lack of visibility at the time of fire. Visibility enables us to decide the egress routes for the occupants and the circulation route for emergency response team .Due to smoke generation the visibility goes on reducing with the time ;therefore to maximize the efficiency of the rescue operations visibility has to be maintained at the optimum level. Thus, due to confined target the emergency response team is able to manage and mitigate the risk due to fire and smoke with greater efficiency.

[Vol-3, Issue-2, Feb- 2016] ISSN: 2349-6495

REFRENCES [1] Fang li and James Antell(2008);Pearl River Tower;Guangzhou: Fire protection strategies for an energy efficient high rise building.

[2] Mahnaz Gharahdaghi & Dvid Sylvester(2011);Smoke control by Morrison Hershfield consulting engineers and managers.

[3] John m. Evenson and Aaron F.Vanney(2008); Burj Dubai:Life safety and crisis response planning enhancements.

[4] Pinkerton and FICCI (2015):India Risk Survey 2015.

[5] John R.Hall, Jr.(2013); High rise building fires: National Fire Protection Association Fire Anlysis and Research division.

[6] Richard W. Bukowski,P.E, FSFPE; Emergency egress from building: NIST Building and fire research laboratory.

[7] Jonathan K, Lund (2013); Pressure regulating valves: Des Moines fire department,Des Moines, Iowa.

[8] Codes of practice, Hong Kong(2013);Minimum fire service installation & equipments.

[9] City of San Diego Development Services(2014): Design and testing requirements of smoke control systems.

[10] William F. Blackley(2006);High rise fire and life safety, Wilmington fire department, North Carolina.

VI. CONCLUSION This study can be concluded depending upon the objectives as follows: 1) Use of Hot Ice Crystal sheet will restrict the fire spread in a confined area which will provide small target to the emergency response team to work on.

2) This study will minimize the risk and after effects of fire hazards in highrise buildings. www.ijaers.com

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