Engineering South Building - Case Study Example

This project is an analysis of the Oklahoma s engineering south building. The project entails giving the building’s general description, its fire protection system and the detailed description of its means of egress. The description of the means of egress is for all the floors in the building. General description Location Engineering south building is located to the north of Student’s Union, south of engineering north, and west of the Edmond law library. It has an “I” shape, with its longest section running from east to west and has six exit doors. It is a four-story building and has a basement. It can be accessed by the fire department through Hester Street. Basement The building’s basement acts as a store for the maintenance equipment. Its walls and floor are made of concrete. There are 17 rooms, mostly offices and some of which are locked. Telling by the number of rooms, there are supposed to be approximately 17 staff members operating at the basement. First floor The first floor hosts offices, classroom, an environmental research laboratory and a computer laboratory. The floor is carpeted. The wall is tiled and has gypsum board covering up to halfway up. The floor should have a maximum of 70 staff members at any single instance, judging by the number of offices. The fire load is made of plastics and woods from the offices, lab and desks. This is based on the assumption that the environmental research laboratory does not have any machinery equipment. The trim is not part of the fire load because it contributes to less than ten percent of the wall. Second floor It is more like the first floor in terms of the number of rooms and the estimated number of staff expected to be present at any particular time. It has almost the same number of offices, classrooms. It also has a computer lab, but no environmental research lab. Third floor It has almost similar description to the first and second floor, except that the classrooms are bigger and have white boards and chalks. The other notable difference is the estimated number of staff expected to be present at any particular time, in this case about 100. Fourth floor It is similar to the first floor, has a carpeted floor for the offices, classrooms and the hallway. All the walls on this floor have gypsum halfway up, and will not be part of the fire load. Structural fire protection Engineering south This building would be a type II or Type III type of construction. This depends on whether the outside of the building is entirely made of bricks, or if it is made of concrete with bricks only used for decoration. The fire department connection is situated northwest of the building, behind the fire hydrant which is located in the northwest area of the building. Fire protection systems The building doesn’t have an installed sprinkler system; neither does it have a post-indicating valve (PIV). It, however, has fire extinguishers and smoke detectors on every floor, the basement included. In the east of the building, there is a large separate building which would be a civil engineering building. Being itself a separate building, the project did not consider any fire loads that might be inside it. It is purely a project for the engineering south building. Engineering south would be a light hazard, judging by the fact that it is a combination of computers, office supplies and desks. The interior finish has trims covering less than 10% of the walls, and thus would not contribute to the fire load. Smoke detectors and fire alarms There are a total of 16 fire alarms, 31 smoke detectors, 12 standpipes and 24 hose connections of the fire department, distributed across all the floors of the building as follows: Basement: the basement has 5 smoke detectors installed, 4 of them equidistant from each other and one above the elevator. It has four fire alarms installed quarter-way at the beginning of the eats-side staircase, halfway going west and at the end of the hallway. The basement also has two two-action pull stations at the base of the west-side and east-side staircases. There are also two standpipes located next to each of the staircases, with each standpipe having a fire extinguisher next to it, and four fire department hose connections. First floor: the first floor has seven smoke detectors installed equidistant from each other all through the hallway, except the detector-grading elevator. There are three fire detectors located next to each stairwell. It has three two-action pull stations situated below the fire alarms. Each exit has three standpipes. The floor also has 6 fire department hose connections. Lastly, the control panel of the fire system is located next to the first floor’s elevator. Second floor: the and first and second floors are similar in terms of the distribution of the gadgets, except that the second floor has 5 instead of 7 smoke detectors and two instead of three standpipes. It also has an additional fire extinguisher located in the middle of the hallway. Third floor: the third floor is more like the second floor, except that it has 6 instead of five smoke detectors, and an additional fire extinguisher located in the middle of the hallway. Fourth floor: the fourth floor has 8 smoke detectors, 2 standpipes located next to the west and east staircases and an additional fire extinguisher located in the middle of the hallway. It has a total of three fire alarms, one of which is also located in the middle of the hallway. Fire barriers The walls of the basement are all fire barriers. It has a 1.5-hour rated fire door located at the top of each of the stairs in the east and west sides. There are no fire barriers anywhere else in the building because there is no other fire rated doors or windows that could be seen. Means of egress Basement: the basement has two emergency exit points. People can use these two exits in case of a fire outbreak. It also has some nonrated doors of about 36-inch width up the stairs. With that, people do not have to go past the exit on the first floor as they are headed down to the basement as they seek to move out of the building. At the end of each of the stairs moving down, there are signs giving directions towards outside of the building. There are three lobe lights, one located at each of the three stairs in the hallway. There are no dead-end corridors, so the exits access starts from any room to the exit discharge. First floor: the first floor has five doors leading outside horizontally. Two of these doors are facing north, whereas the rest face south. All of the five doors are open outward in the direction of exit and have an estimated width of 72 inches, save for one door which faces south. It is 36-inch wide. The exits have three “U-shaped” stairs, one of which connects the first and the second floors in the middle of the building. The other two stairs are situated on the west and east sides of the building all the way to the top-most fourth floor. There are three clear exit signs and three strobe lights installed in the first floor. These are meant to lead people out of the building in case fire breaks out. The first floor hallway is about 140 inches wide. The exit is from any room leading to the exit discharge. There are five fire nonrated doors constructed between the basement and the first floor which are meant to avoid people going past the exit discharge to the basement. Second floor: the second floor ahs three stairs that lead people to the first floor, then to a safe point outside the building in case of a fire emergency. It is similar to the first floor in terms of the number and location of exit signs, and the number of strobe lights and their conditions, and the width of the corridors. Third floor: in terms of the means of egress, the third floor is very similar to the second floor. The only difference is the number of stairs (exits), which in this case are 2. This is because the “U-shaped” stairs in the middle of the building is discounted on the second floor. So, the third floor has three exit signs giving the direction to the outside of the building. Additionally, there are 2 strobe lights located at the end of the hallway. Fourth floor: the fourth floor is more like the third in terms of the number and location of stairs (exits) and those of exit signs and strobe lights. The only notable difference is the width of the hallway which is estimated at 94 inches. The other difference is two 36 inch fire doors between the top of the stairwells and the end of the hallway on the fourth floor. The fire doors are rated at 2 hours. Analysis Stairs and ramps: the actual tread depth of the basement stairs is 9 inches. The life safety code, NFPA 101, and specifically 7.2.2.2.1.1 (b), states that it should be 11 inches. The ramp in the basements is 36 inches, as opposed to a minimum of 44 inches required by the code. Corridors: the basement corridors have a decreasing width as people travel horizontally. This might cause serious problems when people are evacuated out of the building in case of fire outbreak. Fire doors: there is only one fire door in the whole building. It is one the fourth floor between the top of the stairs and ends of the corridors. There should be more. One fire door is not enough. Recommendation A sprinkler system should be installed in the building. This would ensure that the fire is controlled as much as possible and that people are safe as they exit the building. The other recommendation is an increase in the number of fire rated doors and walls, especially on the first floor. This would help to prevent fire and fire from spreading to the second, third and fourth floors of the building. The recommended fire-rated doors should be at the ends of the hallway on each of the floors to separate them from the stairs making them an unblocked means of egress. Read More