Fire safety of industrial halls and low-rise buildings : realistic fire design, active safety measures, post-local failure simulation and performance based requirements

New fire safety regulation proposals for single-storey buildings have appeared in different countries (France, Spain, and Belgium), and could result in a significant loss of market share for steel. The steel industry must be ready to provide strong technical arguments and solutions to avoid the introduction of excessive fire resistance requirements for single storey buildings throughout Europe. The primary aim of this research was to prove that the fire safety of steel single-storey buildings is sufficient, in the absence of passive fire protection, by means of risk assessment and structural simulations showing that the safety of people and firemen is ensured. The safety of firemen is guaranteed by a safe failure mode and non-progressive collapse behaviour of the structure. This methodology was also extended to low level multi-storey structures (two to four storeys). In a first step of the research, the dynamic approach for FEM calculation in case of fire, was developed and introduced into the SAFIR software. The SAFIR, ANSYS and ABAQUS software are now able to pass through local instabilities and calculate the behaviour until the complete failure of the structure in the fire compartment. In that way the non-progressive collapse can be assessed. Using the updated software versions, a parametrical study was made on single-storey buildings. Simplified methodologies have been deduced in order to calculate unprotected steel structures for industrial and storage halls. This project provides a way of guaranteeing the safety of occupants and firemen through alternatives to prescriptive ISO fire requirements.