Date
6-2015
Degree Name
MS in Fire Protection Engineering
College
College of Engineering
Advisor
Frederick Mowrer and Christopher Pascual
Abstract
This fire and life safety report covers a Battalion Headquarters Complex that is used for housing military troops. This is a complete review of the building with prescriptive based fire protection along with performance base review of the building. The prescriptive fire protection covers egress analysis of the space, passive fire protection (i.e. fire walls and doors) and active fire protection (i.e. fire alarm and fire sprinklers). The performance based section looks at the prescriptive requirements and sees if these would be enough for the application at hand. The building fire protection and life safety are covered by three different codes. The Uniform Facility Code (UFC), National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and International Building Code (IBC). With the UFC being the driving code because it is a military based project and the others being derivatives there of. The building is a 3 story barracks housing approximately 296 military personnel. The location of the building is at an undisclosed location. In looking at the building height and area requirements it was determined that the building was too large in area based on the requirements of the IBC. To become code compliant the best solution was to break the building up into five separate areas using 2-hour fire walls at strategic locations. The building was primarily of an R-2 occupancy classification with some other areas. The travel distances, common paths and dead ends in the building were all code compliant. The exit capacity for the building was compliant with the number of occupants based on the egress analysis. Along those lines the evacuation time was also looked at for how long a general evacuation of the building would take. The water based fire protection and fire alarm for the building were designed in accordance with their applicable codes NFPA 13R and NFPA 72 respectively. The water supply for the building was sufficient enough that the building would not require a fire pump to suppliant. There was a 4 head sprinkler calculation that was performed in the most remote location to show that there would be a sufficient supply of water and pressure. The fire alarm system is of an addressable type with mass notification for the building. There are horns and strobes with smoke detection throughout the building. There is a smoke detector in each sleeping room with a sounder base along with a horn. The performance based section consisted of using FDS model to show a worse case fire scenario for the building. For this building a dorm room with a trash can fire was looked at to see how this would affect the building with its protection features and see if there will be enough time to egress from the building. The parameters for the fire were a 100 kW slow growth trash can fire. The visibly for the building was set at 4 meters as the occupants will be familiar with the building at the 6 ft mark. The fractional effective dose (FED) at the 6 ft mark was set to 3500 ppm CO. The smoke temperature at the 6ft mark was set to 200 F. The model was then ran for 5 minutes. It was determined after examining the model that current design would be enough to meet all parameters that applied to it.
https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/fpe_rpt/42
Final Presentation
DOI
10.15368/fperpt.2015.7