Visit by Dr Fleischmann and seminar on Design Fires

Dr Charles Fleischmann, Associate Professor in Fire Engineering at University of Canterbury (New Zealand), is visiting the fire group and will give a seminar on Tues 15 Sept at 4pm in the Alexander Graham Bell Bldg. seminar room.


Seminar Abstract:
Design Fires: are they design variables or regulated parameters?

As fire engineering continues to evolve and Performance Based Design
becomes more and more popular we must ask ourselves who is responsible
for the most important variable in the design process, i.e., the design
fire. Since its inception, performance based design has relied on the
fire engineer to chose and ultimately justify the design fire. Yet, if
you give the same building to a number of fire engineers each one would
come up with a unique design fire and ultimately differing levels of
safety. One would hope that the designs would be similar; anecdotal
evidence indicates that although many would be similar there would be
more outliers than hoped. This presentation will expand on this
discussion and present an alternative approach where the design fire and
acceptance criteria is specified by the authority having jurisdiction
and not left to the designer to develop and justify.