Date
6-2014
Degree Name
MS in Fire Protection Engineering
College
College of Engineering
Advisor
Frederick Mowrer and Christopher Pascual
Abstract
The purpose of this fire and life safety analysis is to provide a conclusion on whether the Agricultural Sciences Building (ASB) meets fire safety goals. The primary fire safety goal is to provide building occupants a safe environment during fire conditions. This goal can be achieved by protecting the occupants not intimate with the initial fire development and improving survivability of those occupants intimate with the initial fire development. A prescriptive-based design approach and a performance-based design approach are used to evaluate building safety. The prescriptive-based approach is used to evaluate the building's structural fire protection systems, fire detection and alarm systems, fire suppression systems and egress design. The performance-based design approach is used to analyze how the building will perform in the event of a fire. The performance-based approach evaluates the building based on the required safe egress time (RSET) and available safe egress time (ASET) for occupants to evacuate the building safely in the event of a fire. A Smoke Management Study was conducted to predict the effects of fire within the ASB using natural ventilation to control smoke. The study is evaluated in this report using hand calculation methods and two computer software programs, Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) and Pathfinder to determine if occupant safety is sufficient. Recommendations to improve building fire safety are discussed based on the results of this fire and life safety analysis.
https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/fpe_rpt/32
Final Presentation
DOI
10.15368/fperpt.2014.16