Fire Safety of Mass timber Buildings with CLT in USA
Keywords:
Mass timber, cross laminated timber, fire safety, fire testing, performance based designAbstract
Multistory buildings using mass timber and cross-laminated timber (CLT) as the primary structural elements are being planned and constructed globally, with interest starting to gather momentum in the United States. Model building codes in the United States limit timber construction to a building height of 85 ft (25.9 m) because of concerns over fire safety and structural performance. Up to 85 ft, the mass timber can be exposed. Architects and developers in the United States are pushing boundaries, requesting mass timber structures are constructed as high-rises and that load-bearing mass timber such as CLT be exposed and not fully protected. This provides an opportunity for the application of recent fire research and fire testing on exposed CLT to be applied, and existing methods of analyzing the impact of fire on engineered timber structures to be developed further. Fire testing has shown that exposing large areas of CLT significantly impacts the heat release rate and fire duration. This article provides an overview of the code requirements for timber construction in the United States, provides methods for building approval for a high-rise timber structure, and summarizes recent CLT compartment fire testing that is informing the fire engineering process. Methods for solutions are also discussed.
References
Aguanno, M., 2013, “Fire Resistance Tests on Cross-Laminated Timber Floor Panels: An Experimental and Numerical Analysis”. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
American Society for Testing and Materials, 2015, “ASTM E84: Standard Test Method for Surface Burning Characteristics of Building Materials”
American Society for Testing and Materials, 2016, “ASTM E119: Standard Test Methods for Fire Tests of Building Construction and Materials”
American Wood Council, 2012, “Code Conforming Wood Design”, Leesburg, Virginia
American Wood Council, 2015, “National Design Specification for Wood Construction”, Leesburg, Virginia
American Wood Council, 2015a, “Calculating the Fire Resistance of Exposed Wood Members, Technical Report No. 10”, Leesburg, Virginia
Babrauskas, V., 2004, “Wood Char Depth: Interpretation in Fire Investigations” Presented at International Symposium on Fire Investigation, Fire Service College, Moreton-in-Marsh, United Kingdom
Barber D, Crielaard R, Li X (2016) Towards fire safe design
of exposed timber in tall timber buildings. In Proc. World
Conference of Timber Engineering, August 22-25, 2016,
Vienna, Austria.
British Standards (2013) Eurocode 1: Actions on structures
part 1-2: General actions—Actions on structures exposed
to fire. BS EN 1991-1-2:2002, incorporating amendments
to 2013.
Buchanan A (2001) Structural design for fire safety. John
Wiley and Sons.
City of New York (2014) 2014 construction codes. http://
www1.nyc.gov/site/buildings/codes/2014-constructioncodes.
page.
Craft ST, et al (2011) Investigation of the behaviour of CLT
panels exposed to fire. In Proc. 12th International Conference
Fire and Materials.
Crielaard R (2015) Self-extinguishment of cross-laminated
timber. Master’s Thesis report, Faculty of Civil Engineering
and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology.
Department of Commerce (1942) Building materials and
structures, report BMS92, fire resistance classification
of structures. National Bureau of Standards, report
of sub-committee on fire resistance classifications of
central housing committee on research, design and
construction.
Drysdale D (2011) An introduction to fire dynamics, 3rd Ed.
Wiley.
Emberley R, Gorska C, Bolanosa A, Lucherinia A, Solartea
A, Soriguera D, Gutierrez M, Humphreys K, Hidalgoa J,
Maluka C, Law A, Torero J (2017) Description of small
and large-scale cross laminated timber fire tests. Fire Saf J
:327-335.
Frangi A, et al (2008) Fire behaviour of cross-laminated solid
timber panels. Institute of Structural Engineering, ETH
Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Hadden R, Bartlett A, Hidalgo J, Santamaria S, Wiesner F,
Bisby L, Deeny S, Lane B (2017) Effects of exposed
engineered timber on compartment fire dynamics. In Proc.
th International Association of Fire Safety Science
Symposium, June 10-16, 2017, Lund, Sweden.
Hox K, et al (2015) “Branntest av massivtre” SP fire research,
report A15101 (in Norwegian, translated by Arup).
International Code Council (ICC) (2015) International
building code.
Kimball A, Hoehler M, Su J (2017) Fire safety challenges of
tall wood—Report on cross laminated timber (CLT)
compartment fire tests. In NFPA Conference and Expo,
June 4-7, 2017, Boston, MA.
Karacabeyli E, Douglas B (2013) CLT handbook, US edition.
FPInnovations SP529-E.
Klippel M, Schmid J, Frangi A (2016) Fire design of CLT,
paper submitted for joint event of COST actions FP1402
and FP1404. KTH Stockholm.
McGregor C (2013)Contribution of cross laminated timber panels to room fires. Thesis, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
Medina A (2014) Fire resistance of partially protected crosslaminated timber rooms. Thesis, Faculty of Graduate and
Postdoctoral Affairs, Civil Engineering, Carleton University
Ottawa, ON, Canada.
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) (2015) “Life
safety code” NFPA 101.
Reska P (2008) In-depth temperature profiles in pyrolyzing
wood. Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy,
University of Edinburgh.
Underwriters Laboratories (2014) UL 263—Standard for fire
tests of building construction and materials.
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
(2015) Tall wood building competition. https://www.
rethinkwood.com/tall-wood-mass-timber/tall-woodcompetition.
Wilinder P (2010) Fire resistance in cross laminated timber.
Master’s thesis, J¨onk¨oping University, Jonkoping, Sweden.
White R (2016) Analytical methods for determining fire
resistance of timber members. In SFPE handbook of fire
protection engineering, 5th Ed.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The copyright of an article published in Wood and Fiber Science is transferred to the Society of Wood Science and Technology (for U. S. Government employees: to the extent transferable), effective if and when the article is accepted for publication. This transfer grants the Society of Wood Science and Technology permission to republish all or any part of the article in any form, e.g., reprints for sale, microfiche, proceedings, etc. However, the authors reserve the following as set forth in the Copyright Law:
1. All proprietary rights other than copyright, such as patent rights.
2. The right to grant or refuse permission to third parties to republish all or part of the article or translations thereof. In the case of whole articles, such third parties must obtain Society of Wood Science and Technology written permission as well. However, the Society may grant rights with respect to Journal issues as a whole.
3. The right to use all or part of this article in future works of their own, such as lectures, press releases, reviews, text books, or reprint books.
