BSBG staff attend Kingspan Fire Safety Seminar

Words by BSBG Media Team, Tuesday 18 December 2018

BSBG staff were in attendance as Kingspan hosted a Fire Safety Seminar in partnership with long-time group collaborator Design Confidence. The seminar was held at The Westin Mina Seyahi, and featured four presentations and culminated in a live demonstration of the way in which different panels react to fire, depending upon material composition.

The event was attended by BSBG Senior Design Architect Roxanne Djaiji, Senior Architectural Technologists Alan McIntyre and AJ Hutchinson, and Senior Architect/Authority Liaison Eman Gamal.

First to present to the gathered attendees was Adrian Brown from Dubai Civil Defence. He provided an overview of the latest FLS code changes, and also showed video footage of the recent fire at Zen Tower in Dubai Marina (the aftermath of which is pictured above).

Next up was BSBG blog contributor, Design Confidence Principal Aaron McDaid. During his presentation, Aaron discussed the latest smoke modelling software, and also explained how smoke extraction during a fire can be improved upon. BSBG’s BLVD Crescent project for Emaar was used as the basis for a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model, providing an illustration of how a well-designed smoke extraction system in corridors can improve the ease and speed in which building users can evacuate during a fire situation.

Design Confidence Fire and Life Safety Consultant Syed Hammad Rizvi then provided a more in-depth analysis of the UAE FLS Code and the changes implemented within the September 2018 update. The code update includes a number of changes from its August 2017 edition one of which include the requirement for spandrels in all buildings other than low-rise and open car parks, the requirement for sprinkler installation on balconies, and the requirement for GRC cladding to be tested as a product.

The last talk was given by Roy Weghorst of Kingspan, who presented several case studies of recent fires in Europe. The focus was on particular buildings that used fire-rated Kingspan panels to properly compartmentalise each part of the building, thereby limiting the spread of flames to prevent the fire from consuming the entire building. Roy also discussed fire testing of panels, and the different fire performance values of a variety of insulated panels currently on the market.

The afternoon culminated with a live ‘reaction to fire’ demonstration for various types of panel cores to illustrate how different materials behaved when exposed to flame. You can watch the video of that demonstration below!

BSBG Media Team

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