Design of Fire Protection Systems for Tall Buildings - Essay Example

The only reason that designer didn’t previously consider it as a potential threat was that the occurrence of these events is very less. But detailed studies after the WTC event have shown immense levels of flaws in the fire protection systems of tall buildings. The recent examples of fires resulting in complete collapse are WTC 1, 2, and 7.

Then the complete collapse of Apartment Block in St. Petersburg, Russia on June 3.2002, then Jackson Street apartments in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on Feb 8, 2002. A list of collapses has been provided in Appendix 2 of all the collapse that was seen in the past. The concept of fireproof construction is that despite the complete burnout of the structure, the structure must not collapse at any cost. For this, two steps are taken by the standards and other implementation bodies.

Firstly the building should be resistant to fire for a certain level which is about 3 hrs, this is done to safeguard from the collapse of the structure, and secondly, an effective fire protection system should be in place, which is present for detection, fire fighting and effective evacuation of inhabitants. At present, the only International Building Code IBC 2006 solely has prescriptive fire resistance construction regulations and bounds the designer to follow it for the protection of structure against fire.

IBC is also supported by National Fire Protection Association and other similar organizations, which I have discussed in detail in later sections. The Approach of this report would be very similar to the process involved in designing a fire-resistant Tall building with an effective fire protection system. Characteristics of Tall Buildings As we are well aware of the processes through which the fire protection facility is brought into commission, where the first phase is the analysis and requirement determination of the fire protection, then the second is the design of these required systems, the third is the construction and finally the maintenance and operations of these systems.

Before the commencement of the design phase of a fire protection system the first and foremost step is to evaluate and analyze the building features and when it becomes detrimental to design a perfect system. What are the different categories of buildings and the types of construction? The first and basic categorization is based on a number of stories, under which a building that has more than 7 stories is declared a tall building. Then these tall buildings or high-rise buildings are subdivided into four property classes, where first is Apartment Buildings, second Hotels, Hospitals, and other facilities that care for the sick, and Office Buildings are the third and fourth type.

On the other hand, discrimination is made based on construction material. According to National Fire Protection Association, (NFPA 220, 2006) there are two basic types of construction: it either burns (combustible) or it does not (noncombustible). These types of construction can be further broken down into five categories.