Industrial fire safety

Projects in industrial fire safety have focussed in areas such as liquid fire and large spill hazards, fire risk management, flammability and explosive environments and flame quenching. The large-scale fire research and small-scale fire test equipment are designed to provide full in-house capability for research related to all aspects of industrial fire safety.

We welcome requests and partnerships for projects in this area.

Flammability and explosive environments

Cement kilns contain potentially explosive mixtures of gases. Flammability tests have been performed to determine what effect the presence of cement dust has upon the explosive nature of the potential gas mixtures. From the data collected, safety limits were established for acceptable concentrations of various gaseous elements and compounds in the cement kiln environment.

Performance based fire codes are being implemented in many countries to replace the current system of prescriptive codes, standards and regulations. While this opens many promising opportunities to enhance the design options and reduce the overall cost of a building, appropriate evaluation tools and fully trained fire protection practitioners are necessary to properly assess and approve non-conforming alternative designs. The evaluation tools, code options and alternative choices necessary to fully implement performance based codes require significant validation through third party research.

Researchers in the Univeristy of Waterloo Fire Research Group are pursuing several avenues of modeling and experimentation related to the advancement and use of performance based codes. These include multi-scale testing, analysis and development of scaling laws for the fire performance of a variety of materials, as well as studies into the specification of fire as a structural load on elements, connections and whole building frameworks.

The Live Fire Research Facility was designed and constructed to support a wide range of research into the behaviour and control of structural fires and their impact on the surrounding building or structure. It provides an excellent venue through which to quantify fire hazards, to test and model alternative design options and to develop new design measures or systems that could be incorporated into a structure to mitigate fire damage.

In support of structural fire research, the University of Waterloo Live Fire Research Facility houses a full range of fire testing capability through its complement of small-scale fire test equipment, component or building system test areas and its two-storey burn house and fully instrumented large-scale test enclosure complete with wind generation capabilities. Complementary tools and expertise are in place for computational modeling of smoke and hot gas layer development during structural fires, as well as analysis of their impact on the overall integrity of the structure.

Members of the UW Fire Research Group are investigating new methods for the inclusion of fire as a mechanical load in structural analysis for building design. This research stems from the fact that current prescriptive practice relies on provisions of thermal insulation to protect individual structural components such that the structure can be assumed to remain at ambient temperature and that when a member is adequately protected, the effects of fire on the entire structure can be assumed negligible. Such provisions are often not practical, or even realistic, when alternative design solutions are under consideration. One alternative method under development is based on an approach used successfully in the analysis of progressive failure due to abnormal mechanical loads in 2D steel frameworks. Stiffness reduction factors are used to represent the compound effects of flexural, axial and shear deformations at member-end and member connections and fire is further accounted for as a load by supplementing the computation of load reduction factors to include stiffness-temperature relations derived from experimental work conducted elsewhere. Through better understanding of the behaviour of structural members under fire, and their consequent interaction in the entire structure, engineers will develop more effective means of fire protection, specifically targeted to address the structural effects of fire.

We welcome partnerships to develop new research initiatives in all areas related to residential and commercial structural fire safety.

Members of the University of Waterloo Fire Research Group have been involved in projects with the former Major Industrial Accidents Council of Canada (MIACC) on their guidelines for Risk Assessment: Recommended Practices for Municipalities and Industry (PDF), with Syncrude Canada on Practical Application of Risk Assessment to Industrial Processes, with the Institute for Risk Research on LPG Movement on the St. Lawrence River and with researchers at Memorial University and Dalhousie University in developmental risk management tools for the offshore oil industry. These projects focus on identification of potential fire hazards and scenarios, as well as assessment of existing fire and fire hazard models for use in quantitative risk assessment in industrial environments. Future extensions relating to fire scenarios in other structures, as well as to other industries and applications will also be undertaken. Risk-related research is very complementary to the large-scale experimental fire capabilities and fire modelling expertise in the UW Fire Research Group.