Performance Requirement for Building Fire Safety from the Viewpoint of Firefighting and Rescue Activity

Transcription

1 Fire Science and Technorogy Vol.25 No.2(2006) Performance Requirement for Building Fire Safety from the Viewpoint of Firefighting and Rescue Activity Ai Sekizawa 1 and Hiroaki Notake 2 1 Fire and Disaster Management Engineering Laboratory, e University of Tokyo. 2 Institute of Technology, Shimizu Corporation. 1. INTRODUCTION The Building Standard Law in Japan was amended into a performance-based regulation as of June 1st, 2000, while the Fire Service Law, which is under the control of the Fire and Disaster Management Agency (FDMA), was also revised in June 2003 and accordingly the technical standards regarding fire protection equipment has been advanced steadily aiming at the introduction of performance based regulations. To better understand the context behind the moves toward a world of performance-based fire safety design in Japan, the roles and characteristics of the fire administration relating to building fire safety are introduced and discussed in this paper. The fire administration, which is controlled by FDMA and local fire services, is mainly concerned with active fire protection systems such as equipment for fire alarm, suppression, and firefighting/rescue activity, while the building administration is more concerned with passive fire protection systems in addition to other aspects of building safety design such as egress routes. Although the roles of these two administrative bodies within the field of building fire safety differ in essence, they cooperate with each other in the basis of respective laws and regulations. In parallel with the progress toward deregulation, FDMA has kept running a technical committee aimed at developing performance-based regulations of fire protection equipment along with performance verification methods. First, this paper discusses the manner of involvement of fire administration and the general characteristics of countermeasures related to building fire safety in comparison to the building administration[1,2]. Second, this paper provides an introduction to a performance verification method for smoke and heat environment as performance requirement of a staging area with pressurization as an example of objective verification methods as stipulated in the Fire Service Law (Route B)[3]. 2. INVOLVEMENT OF FIRE ADMINISTRATION IN BUILDING FIRE SAFETY In order to compare the purpose of the Fire Service Law with that of the Building Standard Law, their respective descriptions of "Purpose" in Article 1 of each law are shown in Table 1. Although the ultimate purpose of each law is to contribute to the

2 148 A. SEKIZAWA and H. NOTAKE furtherance of the public welfare, it is interesting to note that the characteristics of the administrative standpoint or manner of involvement in fire safety of each law can be found even in these relatively short statements. For example, the term of fire (although other disasters such as earthquakes are included) is clearly indicated at the outset in the purpose of the Fire Service Law, and aspects are indicated in the form of active involvement in fire safety by fire brigades in line with the course of disastrous events consisting of preventing, guarding against and controlling fire, thereby revealing the characteristics of fire administration policies and administrative behavior. On the other hand, the characteristic that can be interpreted from the Building Standard Law is that, although the purpose of fire safety itself is not clearly stated, the minimum necessary standards are defined for protecting life, health and prosperity of the people, which is an overall purpose that includes the purpose of fire safety. It also stipulates various physical conditions to be satisfied by primarily facilities and equipment in order to allow construction. Thus, this law is characterized by more passive administrative involvement. Next, when considering the purpose of the Fire Service Law in more detail, the underlined term "preventing *1 indicates contents consisting of prevention of the outbreak of fires and prevention of the early spread of fire, such as fire prevention, fire protection management, consent to building permit, fire inspection, regulation of flame retardant and so forth, according to that stipulated in Chapter 2 entitled, "Fire Prevention. In addition, Chapter 4, which is entitled, Fire Protection Equipment, mandates the installation of fire protection equipment along with its maintenance and management corresponding to the classification of property use, size and height of structure etc. for the purpose of fire detection, alarms, early firefighting and evacuation. In other words, countermeasures are indicated that encompass both human activity and equipment aspects of fire protection. Table 1. Purpose of Building Standard Law and Fire Service Law in Japan Purpose of Building Standard Law (Chapter 1 General Provisions, Article 1 Purpose) "The purpose of this Law is to establish the minimum standards concerning the site, structure, equipment and use of buildings to protect life, health and properties of the people, and thereby to contribute to the furtherance of public welfare. Purpose of Fire Service Law (Chapter 1 General Provisions, Article 1 Object) "The object of this Law is to maintain peace and order *6 and promote the public welfare by preventing *1, guarding against *2 and controlling *3 fire, protecting people s life, person and property from fire *4 and minimizing the damages done by fire, earthquake or other disasters *5. Note: The underlines and superscripts contained in the text of the purpose of the Fire Service Law are those of the authors

3 Performance Requirement for Building Fire Safety from the Viewpoint of Firefighting and Rescue Activity 149 Based on what is stated in Chapter 5 of the Fire Service Law entitled, "Guarding Against Fire", "guarding against fire *2 relates to such matters as weather conditions and fire warnings or the establishment of areas to be guarded against fire during leakage of gas or other hazardous materials, indicating contents emphasizing regional fire prevention aspects. In the broader sense, however, this can naturally also be interpreted as including such elements as fire alarms in case of building fires. Although the term "controlling *3 is not used as a heading in the provisions, examples of matters falling under this concept are found in Chapter 6 of the Fire Service Law entitled, Firefighting". This chapter stipulates matters relating to the responsibility to report a fire, the responsibility to engage in incipient firefighting and full-scale firefighting. In these provisions, in order to prevent fire disaster, in addition to placing the responsibility to cooperate on ordinary citizens, fire administration is also allowed to exercise considerable public rights in unavoidable cases, such as the right of way of fire engines during an emergency, establishment of restricted areas and emergency measures taken by a fire chief during the course of firefighting activities. Moreover, in comparison with minimizing the damages *5 that appears along with it, the meaning of protecting people s life, person and property from fire *4 is believed to refer to measures for preventing the occurrence of a fire along with protecting from the resulting risk of damage during occurrence of a fire. In addition, it is only natural to think that the meaning of minimizing the damages most likely refers to reducing damage as much as possible even in situations in which there is only partial damage during the occurrence of a fire. A difference between the Fire Service Law and the Building Standard Law is that the phase, "maintain peace and order *6 is added before the words, promote the public welfare. Although this is the authors personal interpretation, this may actually refer to efforts to prevent the spread of a fire through disaster prevention activities (firefighting and rescue services), which is unique to fire administration in order to eliminate and relieve the apprehension and confusion in a local community that may occur due to various types of disasters including fires. Whether or not this interpretation is accurate is not known at the present time. In this manner, the contents indicated in the purpose of the Fire Service Law quite clearly express prevention of fire occurrence and fire spread, and include contents that are not limited to simply installation regulations for fire protection systems. Namely, together with preventive aspects before a fire occurs such as fire protection management, equipment installation, maintenance and management, the Fire Service Law is thought to stipulate those matters necessary for achieving the purpose of actual fire and disaster protection activities in line with the course of disastrous events, including human accommodations made by fire departments as well as those persons involved in fire. This can be better understood by considering that the background of this law contains not only the purpose of fire prevention of individual buildings, but also the purpose of preventing conflagration, which used to be a most important issue at the time the Fire

4 150 A. SEKIZAWA and H. NOTAKE Service Law was enacted shortly after the end of the Second World War. Furthermore, within the framework of fire regulations, there are many cases in which specific technical standards are designated in the regulations and ordinances set by the Cabinet Order subordinate to the Fire Service Law, as is typically observed in equipment such as the obligation to install and maintain fire protection equipment and other facilities necessary for firefighting (Chapter 4, Article 17 of the Fire Service Law). 3. TWO WORLDS OF BUILDING ADMINISTRATION AND FIRE ADMINISTRATION Although the previous section discussed the manner of involvement of fire administration in building fire safety on the basis of the purpose and configuration of provisions of the Fire Service Law, in this section, a discussion is presented regarding the general characteristics of fire administration and related countermeasures. Figure 1 shows a schematic illustration of the relationship among fire safety measures regulated by Building Standard Law and Fire Service Law respectively regarding building fire safety. Among these measures, active fire protection systems such as fire detection and alarm systems, fire suppression systems, equipment for fire service activities including standpipes mainly fall under the jurisdiction of Fire Service Law controlled by the Fire and Disaster Management Agency of the Ministry of Home Affairs. On the other hand, the Building Standard Law under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport primarily covers mainly passive fire protection systems including structure stability, evacuation facilities such as stairways and elevators, fire resistance requirements, fire and smoke compartment, and so on. Both laws have articles that relate to building fire safety. Some of them provide for particular field and some others provide for overlapped field. Here, smoke control system is one of typical cases that are specified by both the Building Standards Law and Fire Service Law, and it is usually designed in accordance to the Building Standards Law. However, even basements and windowless floors that may be exempted from having smoke control systems under the Building Standards Law are still required to have smoke control systems for firefighting purpose by Fire Service Law.

5 Performance Requirement for Building Fire Safety from the Viewpoint of Firefighting and Rescue Activity 151 Figure 1 Relation between Fire Service Law and Building Standard Law from the viewpoint of building fire safety. The purpose of smoke control system differs essentially according to the stages of evacuating occupants and conducting firefighting because of the difference in the envisioned use of smoke control systems in each stage. In other words, while the smoke control system for evacuation is used for the purpose of ensuring the safety of occupants during their evacuation from a building in an early stage of fire, the smoke control system for firefighting is used to facilitate the safe and smooth firefighting activities of fire brigades in a fully developed fire. Actually, smoke control system is listed first as a "required system for firefighting" in Article 7 of the Enforcement Ordinance of the Fire Service Law. From the viewpoint of firefighting, therefore, it is desirable that smoke control systems continue to operate even as fire develops and spreads. However, since smoke control system specifications are usually designed according to Building Standards Law, there is a contradiction with the mechanical smoke control systems in such a case when smoke control fans stop due to the activation of a closing apparatus (fire damper) that is provided in smoke exhaust ducts to prevent the spread of fire. It is natural that the required performance of smoke control systems for each purpose differs because evacuation is carried out for an unspecified number of people including children, the elderly and people awoken from sleep wearing clothing not designed for fire protection, while firefighting activity is carried out by firefighters wearing fire coats, masks and breathing equipment. In this sense, pressurized smoke prevention systems can be considered as desirable smoke control systems that accomplish both the purpose of ensuing evacuation routes at the early stage of fire and protecting a staging area even under a fully developed fire.

6 152 A. SEKIZAWA and H. NOTAKE 4. D I F F E R E N C E B E T W E E N T H E R I S K S C O V E R E D B Y B U I L D I N G A D M I N I S T R AT I O N A N D B Y F I R E ADMINISTRATION Both Building Standard Law and Fire Service Law contain matters relating to building fire safety, and the majority of these define mutually unique fields as was mentioned. For example, as for the involvement in building fire safety in the area of building administration, the most important aspect is building permission at the time of building construction (including new construction, renovation and large-scale repairs). By contrast, fire administration is involved with building fire safety throughout the entire lifetime of a building. Namely, in addition to the consent to building permit at the time of construction, fire prevention, fire protection management, equipment maintenance and management as well as emergency response activities (including firefighting and rescue activities) during the occurrence of a fire that characterize fire administration in particular are deployed after a building is constructed, and these matters comprise the common role of fire administration in foreign countries as well. In addition, the roles of fire protection countermeasures from the standpoint of building administration and fire administration also have their respective characteristics according to the stages of fire growth. The stage of preventing early fire spread due to early detection of a fire and initial firefighting activities, including the preventive stage prior to the occurrence of a fire, mainly involves fire administration countermeasures such as equipment maintenance, detectors, fire alarm systems, fire suppression systems including sprinkler system. Conversely, at the stage where a fire has begun to grow resulting in the need to evacuate occupants and the need to ensure their safety, the primary role is played by building administration countermeasures such as egress means, smoke exhaust system, fire doors and fire compartment. At the stage of firefighting and rescue starting when a fire spread has reached a fully developed stage, which is no longer able to be controlled by occupants or building staff, fire administration countermeasures such as fire brigades activities once again come to the forefront.

7 Performance Requirement for Building Fire Safety from the Viewpoint of Firefighting and Rescue Activity 153 Figure 2 Range of Related Risk for Each Role in connection with Fire Size ( conceptual ). In firefighting activities, it is the responsibility of fire brigades to implement actions until a fire is finally extinguished not only to suppress a fire, but also to prevent their re-ignition. Once fire brigades have arrived at a fire scene, maximum efforts are made to localize fire damage regardless of whether the property belongs to persons affected by the fire or others (which is actually extremely difficult to distinguish during a fire) as well as to rescue any occupants left behind. This is the ultimate mission of fire administration, and is naturally the role that is expected by society as the reason for existence of fire brigades. Within the scope of building administration (or the provisions of the Building Standard Law), guaranteeing safe evacuation of occupants along with preventing building collapse due to ordinary fires or fires that can normally be predicted is generally considered to be the minimum objective. As a realistic problem, however, it is a fact that fires can occur that go beyond what is expected due to arson or unforeseen circumstances. Fire administration is naturally required to accommodate these types of fires as well, which although having a low probability of occurrence, have the potential for considerable damage. Thus, it can be said that if so-called building countermeasures required by the Building Standard Law are assumed to ensure safety in a world of average risk, then fire administration countermeasures fulfill the role of ensuring safety in a world that includes a range that goes beyond average risk, as illustrated in Figure 2. Fire regulations focus on the fire itself and are premised on the activities deployed by people corresponding to each stage of a fire, starting from the detection of a fire and continuing through evacuation, firefighting and rescue. Thus, fire regulations contain numerous provisions relating to facilities used in the above activities (active systems).

8 154 A. SEKIZAWA and H. NOTAKE In this sense, fire protection systems stipulated in fire regulations can be interpreted as composing a kind of redundant system in the sense of being prepared to accommodate any stage of fire growth based on the objective of reducing damage as much as possible at various cross-sections of fire phenomena that can actually occur. 5. DI LEMMA BET WEEN SAFET Y P ERFORMANCE OF OCCUPANTS EVACUATION IN THE REVISED BUILDING STANDARD LAW AND SAFET Y OF FI REFIGH T I NG ACTIVITY BY FIRE BRIGADES. Although there are relaxation measures in which several provisions are excluded (exempt) from application if evacuation safety performance is validated with the standard verification methods in the Revised Building Standard Law, some questions are presented with the hope that they be examined in the future regarding the items (a, b, and c) indicated below that are controversial from the perspective of ensuring safe and smooth firefighting activities by fire brigades. a) Problem of Vestibules of Special Escape Stairs (Applicable Provision: Article 123, Paragraph 3, Item 1 of the Enforcement Orders of the Building Standard Law) A general rule of firefighting strategies conducted by fire brigades at the site of a building fire is to reach the floor immediately below the floor of fire origin using a stairway protected from fire and smoke or an emergency elevator for fire service, and establish a staging area for firefighting activities on that floor (although there are also cases in which a staging area is established on the floor where a fire is located when the risk on that floor is low). The floor where a fire is located is then normally accessed using a staircase from the floor immediately below. Thus, staircases and their vestibules are considered to be extremely important areas from the standpoint of the safety of fire personnel and ensuring smooth firefighting activities. In addition, stairway vestibules are much easier to use as staging areas and breathing space than staircase landings. Since vestibules also serve as a buffer zone when repeatedly entering and leaving flat areas on the floor (rooms and corridors) from the staircase, they also extremely effective in terms of protecting the staircase itself from heat and smoke. Once a fire has grown into a fully developed fire, the activities deployed by fire brigades consist of a battle with fire, smoke and heat. Therefore, as the provision of the Revised Building Standard Law, exempting the installation of vestibules for Special Escape Stairs, which is one of the items that can be excluded by satisfaction of requirements for Floor Evacuation Safety Performance, is very controversial in terms of ensuring the safety of fire personnel and their smooth firefighting activities once a fire has grown into a fully developed fire. Normally, emergency elevators with vestibules for fire service are installed in

9 Performance Requirement for Building Fire Safety from the Viewpoint of Firefighting and Rescue Activity 155 buildings taller than 31 meters (roughly 10 stories high). In addition, since special escape stairs are installed in buildings of 15 stories or more, there is unlikely to be a problem assuming that firefighting activities were conducted using only emergency elevators for fire service. However, since special escape stairs must be provided in retail establishments of 5 stories or higher, in the case of such target properties, there is the possibility of important access for fire brigades and locations for staging areas being lost. In addition, vestibules of special escape stairs are also important as the primary area of refuge for disabled persons. b) Problems with Smoke Exhaust Systems (Applicable Provision: Article 126, Paragraph 2 of the Enforcement Orders of the Building Standard Law) Standards for smoke exhaust systems stipulated in the Fire Service Law have conventionally been coordinated with smoke exhaust systems stipulated in the Building Standard Law, and the implementation of coordinated matters has been in accordance with the Building Standard Law. However, there are aspects of the purpose of installing smoke exhaust systems which cause it to vary fire administration s smoke exhaust and building administration s smoke exhaust due to differences in the presumed settings in which they are used. In other words, in contrast to the purpose of building administration s smoke exhaust being to secure safe and smooth evacuation of occupants at the time of the initial stage of a fire growth, the purpose of fire administration s smoke exhaust is to secure the safety of fire personnel and the smooth firefighting activities at the time of a fully developed fire[2]. In fact, smoke exhaust systems are listed first as facilities necessary for firefighting in the enforcement orders of the Fire Service Law. For example, although the installation of smoke exhaust systems pertaining to certain compartments and areas subjected to restrictions on interior finish can be exempted in the Building Standard Law, this exemption of installation is not applicable in the Fire Service Law for areas such as underground floors and windowless floors where smoke tends to accumulate easily. In this manner, the requirements for exempting installation of smoke exhaust systems in the Fire Service Law are inherently based on a judgment of whether or not firefighting activities are impaired by the heat and components of smoke generated during a fire. As to provisions for exempting smoke exhaust systems that can be excluded by satisfying the requirements for "Floor Evacuation Safety Performance", it is important to note the manner in which coordination is achieved with the safety of firefighting personnel and protection of the environment in the area where those activities are conducted during a fully developed fire, and careful studies will be required to determine what types of effects these provisions have. c) Fire Resistance of Escape Staircases (Applicable Provision: Article 123, Paragraph 1, Item 1 of the Enforcement Orders of the Building Standard Law) As was previously mentioned, from the viewpoint of firefighting strategies deployed by fire brigades, staircases are a fundamental access route in medium- and high-rise buildings, and also serve as staging areas for deploying those strategies. Even in the case of emergency elevators, since there is always the possibility of occurrence of a

10 156 A. SEKIZAWA and H. NOTAKE mechanical failure, in the event a malfunction occurs, it becomes extremely difficult to secure the safety and withdrawal route of fire personnel engaged in activities on the floor where a fire is located or on higher floors. Escape stairs, which function as valuable elevated shaft compartments running throughout medium- and high-rise buildings, not only serve as evacuation and withdrawal routes for building occupants, but are actually also access and withdrawal routes for firefighting personnel as well as locations that can serve as staging areas. Thus, from the viewpoint of securing the safety of activities conducted by firefighting personnel even after occupants have finished evacuating the building, the exclusion of application of provisions relating to the structure of staircases of escape stairs in the case of having satisfied requirements for Total Building Evacuation Safety Performance must be considered to be a subject of considerable interest. Realistically, it is not uncommon for firefighting activities to take more than 1 hour to completely extinguish the fire in fire-resistive structures, which is usually much longer than total evacuation time of occupants. Although certainly careful considerations might be made during the course of actual design, from the standpoint of fire administration, it goes without saying that it is desirable for the staircases of escape stairs to employ a fire-resistive structure having a high safety factor whenever possible. 6. V E R I F I C AT I O N M E T H O D O F P R E S S U R I Z AT I O N SMOKE CONTROL SYSTEM FOR A STAGING AREA OF FIREFIGHTING AND RESCUE ACTIVITY As has been already introduced on several occasions, the revised Building Standard Law deploys three design approaches consisting of "acceptable solutions by prescriptive design" in compliance with conventional specification standards (Route A), "performance-based design" using an objective verification method (Route B), and "special performance-based design" in compliance with ministerial certification (Route C). In response to these changes in the Building Standard Law, the Fire Service Law also underwent a partial revision in June 2003, resulting in the introduction of performance regulations for installation standards of equipment such as active fire protection systems. At present, a committee established by the Fire and Disaster Management Agency is proceeding with the establishment of technical standards towards embodiment of performance regulations for sprinkler system, evacuation guidance system, and smoke control system. This paper provides an introduction to a performance verification method for smoke and heat environment of a staging area with pressurization as an example of an objective verification method as stipulated in the Fire Service Law (Route B). This verification method is a new approach and it differs from the existing verification method for evacuation safety in the Building Standard Law that focuses only on the early stage of fire.

11 Performance Requirement for Building Fire Safety from the Viewpoint of Firefighting and Rescue Activity 157 Figure3 Illustration of Performance Verification Method of Smoke Control System by Pressurization for a Staging Area of Firefighting and Rescue Activity. 6.1 Space Applicable for a Staging Area of Firefighting and Rescue Activities An illustration of this verification method is shown in Figure 3. Here, the term of "staging area" refers to a space provided for the purpose of supporting firefighting and rescue activities by gathering personnel, equipment and information required for these activities. Although an emergency operational center usually located on a floor of refuge is one example of such an area, since the primary objective of this verification method is to examine the performance of smoke control conditions of such an area for firefighting and rescue activity on a fire floor, the staging area is presumed to be a space located on the floor where a fire occurs. Also, the space that serves as a staging area is fundamentally regarded as a vestibule of evacuation staircase and/or an emergency-use elevator lobby. But, it is likely that the types of spaces able to be verified as staging areas will increase in the future as additional technical findings are accumulated. 6.2 Targets and Objectives The verification method targets the application of a pressurization smoke control system for that space. Air is supplied mechanically to a staging area, and the location of a smoke shield line is set around the door between a staging area and a room connected to a fire room. Staging areas provided with air do not necessarily require a smoke exhaust outlet. The types of building, in which the verification method is applicable, are department stores and merchandising facilities. The target floor subject to the verification is a basement floor or a windowless floor that has 1000m 2 or more as the

12 158 A. SEKIZAWA and H. NOTAKE floor area. Here, the critical size of 1000m 2 as floor area is derived from the installation requirement for smoke control system in Fire Service Law. The structure type of a subject building needs to be fire-resistive. The conditions for applying this verification method as described above are summarized in Table 2. For applications, which are difficult to be treated as Route B, efforts will be made to accumulate technical findings while receiving ministerial certification corresponding to special designs at individual buildings based on Route C. Table 2 Conditions in Application of the Verification Method. If the data concerning the combustible is accumulated and appropriate design fire is able to be set in the future, the applicable objectives will be enhanced to other type and size of buildings. Especially, since the expansion of application of this verification method to office buildings is desired strongly, it is necessary to advance a more technical examination while confirming the correspondence with Building Standard Law in the future. 6.3 Modeling of a Design Fire When considering safety from smoke and heat in a staging area, the assumption of a design fire is an important factor. Figure 4 shows a series of fire phases from fire breakout to extinction in a general building. There are three phases, in which the activity of fire brigades is expected to work effectively for suppressing a fire. These are; (1) the phase of rescue and initial firefighting, (2) the phase of preventing fire spread to adjacent compartments, and (3) the phase of finally extinguishing a fire. We assume the fire phase (1) for a design fire in a room of fire origin. The severity of a design fire in this phase is larger than that of the design fire used in the verification method for evacuation safety, but is smaller than that used in the verification method for structural fire safety. The design fire is set in one of smoke compartments. The value of heat release rate for the design fire is still under discussion at present, but we have categorized the combustible in a fire room according to the exhibit size and density of the combustibles and flammability. Table 3 shows the classification for example. Upon the determination

13 Performance Requirement for Building Fire Safety from the Viewpoint of Firefighting and Rescue Activity 159 of heat release rate for the design fire, the results of real scale fire experiments using these combustibles are considered. And, the value of heat release rate is set on the assumption that there is no operation of sprinkler system as a conservative condition. Figure 4 Relation between Classification of Fire Phase and Firefighting Activities. Table 3 Classification of Design Fire by the Exhibit Unit Size or Density Level of combustible and Flammability of combustible. 6.4 Arrangement of Staging Areas on a Floor When engaged in firefighting and rescue operations on a fire floor, fire brigades must approach a fire room from staging areas. Therefore, staging areas should be arranged so as not to encounter excessive difficulty during approach activity of fire brigades

14 160 A. SEKIZAWA and H. NOTAKE wherever fire occurs on the floor. One of the requirements proposed is that staging areas be arranged so that any location on a floor is within 50 meters from one of staging areas. A horizontal distance of 50 meters has been set to the same level as the installation standards of intakes of fire department standpipe, which is considered to be extremely important as equipment used during firefighting operations. 6.5 Patterns of Connection of Rooms and Smoke Control System Applicants should pay attention to appropriate airflow from a staging area to a fire room and/or an adjacent room where outside opening or mechanical smoke exhaust is put into place not to pollute other rooms and floors with smoke by pressurization. Figure 5 shows a typical example of patterns of room connection and smoke control system. The procedure of the verification is examined according to these patterns. It is necessary to check whether or not the airflow to the outside can be secured even though a fire damper in smoke duct penetrating fire compartments is shut down due to high temperature. 6.6 Verification Procedure and Criteria Figure 6 shows the flow of calculation procedure of the verification method. The fire room is set in a smoke compartment, and the room temperature is calculated one by one according to the connection condition of each room from a fire room to the staging area. The surface temperature of the door is calculated by the expression that applies the concept of integrated heat transfer that involves the effect of both radiation heat transfer and convective heat transfer. The temperature rise in the staging area is calculated from the expression of heat exchange between the heat inflow from the heated wall and door by fire, and the heat outflow with mechanical air supply. The differential pressure at a door opening of the staging area is calculated by the expression that applies the concept of average differential pressure. The door opening force is calculated by rotation moment around the door hinge in consideration of differential pressure occurs at the door.

15 Performance Requirement for Building Fire Safety from the Viewpoint of Firefighting and Rescue Activity 161 Figure 5 Examples of Patterns of Connection of Rooms and Smoke Control Systems. Figure 6 Flow Chart of Procedure of the Verification Method. At present, the following verification criteria are considered. All of the criteria should be satisfied under a given fire scenario. (a) Temperature rise in a staging area should be 10K or less. (b) Average surface temperature of doors and walls on the side of a staging area should be 100 C or less.

16 162 A. SEKIZAWA and H. NOTAKE (c) Pressure difference at openings*1 should be kept 0 Pa or larger to prevent the smoke inflow. (d) Door opening force should be kept 120 N or less. Note *1: An opening referred to here indicates a door and the like of a staging area that connects to a fire room or rooms leading to a fire room. 7. CONCLUDING REMARKS This report first provides a discussion of topics relating to the current performance-based building codes and fire codes from the standpoint of fire administration, along with the characteristics of fire administration s countermeasures in comparison with building administration s countermeasures. Second, an introduction to the performance verification method for smoke and heat environment as performance requirement of a staging area with pressurization is given as an example of the objective verification methods as stipulated in the Fire Service Law (Route B), which is now under consideration. When considering firefighting and rescue operations, both of the easiness of approaching a fire scene from staging areas and the assurance of retreating routes if an unforeseen dangerous situation happens are important. Therefore, continued discussions will be necessary in the future to determine how these factors should be incorporated in the performance requirement for supporting fire brigades operations. Finally, the authors would like to state that the contents of this report are based on the personal understanding and awareness of the authors at present, and are presented at the responsibility of the authors. REFERENCES 1. Sekizawa, A., Ebihara, M., The Roles and Characteristics of Fire Administration on Building Fire Safety, Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Performance-Based Codes and Fire Safety Design Methods, March 2002, Melbourne, Australia, pp Sekizawa, A., Explanatory Overview on the Main Theme: How to Harmonize Passive Systems and Active Systems in the New Era of Performance-based Fire Safety Design, Proceedings of Technical Conference in Research Committee on Fire Safety, Architectural Institute of Japan, September 2005, pp (in Japanese) 3. Notake, H., Sekizawa, A., Performance Verification Method of Pressurization Smoke Control System for a Staging Area of Firefighting and Rescue Activity, Proceedings of 6th International Conference on Performance-Based Codes and Fire Safety Design Methods, June 2006, Tokyo, Japan, pp