FIRE RESISTANCE

There is still a broad variety of systems of technical requirements for buildings in the various European countries, despite the existence of the Construction Products Directive of the European Union and the development of Euro Codes. The goals and topics are quite similar, and most countries call their regulations ‘performance based,’ but a detailed study reveals considerable variety of functional requirements, performance requirements, and specifications, with inconsistency within the requirements of some countries.

(PDF) Building regulations on fire safety in Europe. Available from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/27344938_Building_regulations_on_fire_safety_in_Europe
[accessed Oct 25 2018].

Modern buildings must be designed in such a way as to meet precise safety requirements, including fire protection. Consequently, each construction must be designed and equipped with devices to limit the initiation and spread of fires.

One of the goals of fire prevention is to minimize the risk of fire.

The risk of an accidental event, such as the fire, is given by the Frequency for the Magnitude, where the frequency indicates the probability that the event will occur in a given time interval, the magnitude indicates the extent of possible damage. If you want to reduce the frequency a prevention action is implemented; if you work on magnitude, you do protection.

The Protection can be PASSIVE or ACTIVE.

The active one requires human intervention or a system:

  1. Fire-fighting water network;
  2. Fire extinguishers;
  3. Automatic detection and extinguishing systems;
  4. Smoke and heat evacuators;
  5. Signaling and alarm devices.

The passive one does not require the human or a system intervention but consists of:

  1. Fire barriers: for example, firebreak walls, building insulation, external and internal safety distances, etc .;
  2. Structures with fire resistance characteristics commensurate with fire load*;
  3. Materials classified for reaction to fire **;
  4. Ventilation systems;
  5. Exit routes commiserated to maximum conceivable crowding.

*The fire resistance of structures is one of the fundamental protection strategies to be pursued to guarantee an adequate level of construction safety in fire conditions. It concerns: the load-bearing capacity in case of fire and the compartmentalisation capacity that allows to divide a building in areas hermetically impermeable to the effects of a fire in order to reduce the specific risk of spreading the fire. Fire resistance represents the time interval (minutes) of exposure of the structural element to a fire, during which the construction element considered preserves the design requirements for mechanical stability, sealing of the products of combustion and thermal insulation.
Fire resistance can be defined as the capacity of a building element (component or structure) to preserve over time: stability (R); the seal on combustion products (E); thermal insulation (I); irradiation (W). So for example with the symbol REI identifies a constructive element that must preserve, for a certain time, the stability, the seal and the thermal insulation while with the symbol R it identifies a constructive element that must preserve, for a determined time, the only stability.
The systems are classified according to the European standard EN 13501-2.

** The reaction to fire of a material concerns its degree of participation in the fire to which it is subjected. The materials are classified according to the European standard EN 13501-1 in Euroclasses (A1, A2, B, C, D, E, F): those classified A1 are non-combustible while the materials certified A2, B, C, D, E, F they burn in ascending order. The reaction to fire of the materials is particularly influential on the fire risk of the external partitions and roofs in relation to a fire outside the building.

FIBRAN proposes solutions for PASSIVE PROTECTION of buildings made with fireproof products such as FIBRANgeo stonewool and with gypsum plasterboards both non-combustible and with A2 fire reaction.