Welcome
A library of fire tests of different combinations of products has been created by engineers at Design Fire Consultants Ltd in conjunction with researchers at the University of Edinburgh’s Fire Research Centre.
The Grenfell Tower fire resulted in 72 deaths, and precipitated a building safety crisis within the United Kingdom. For many buildings, remedial works were required to achieve an adequate level of safety. However, identifying which buildings should be remediated – and to what extent, is a highly subjective process.
To provide a framework for such assessments, government sponsored the creation of a Publicly Available Standard (PAS 9980). PAS 9980 sets out a process whereby the fire risk could be assessed. There were three key parts of the analysis:
- Fire performance risk factors. These relate to the materials in the external wall system and their configuration in relation to one-another.
- Facade configuration risk factors. These relate to factors such as the extent of cladding systems, and the location of openings into the building.
- Fire Strategy risk factors. These relate to wider building considerations such as the presence of detection and the location of escape routes.
For many engineers, assessing items 2) and 3) is a relatively elementary exercise. This is because it is relatively easy to obtain information relating to fire strategy, and the location and extent of combustible cladding. However, assessing item 1) is more challenging as the assessor requires detailed knowledge of the cladding materials and how they may (as an assembly) react to fire.
Assessors may obtain such information from a variety of sources such as reaction-to-fire testing, or large-scale fire tests (e.g. BS 8414). However, such information may not be available for existing buildings, or may be expensive and time-consuming to generate.
Engineers at Design Fire Consultants Ltd and researchers at The University of Edinburgh’s Fire Research Centre have worked together to:
- Undertake a series of tests on a wide array of candidate cladding assemblies;
- Analyse and present the results; and
- Show how these may be incorporated into a PAS 9980 assessment.
This website makes available of the data, analytics, images, and video that was generated as part of this project. To help contextualise this information, three reports are also provided which document: the test method; the results; and how such data could be incorporated into a PAS 9980 assessment.
The tests performed as part of this work do not generate “pass/fail” results; nor are they intended to exactly replicate the assembly of a particular external wall or a particular fire. It is hoped that assessors may find the data and analytics helpful when considering different combinations of product within the wider context as a PAS assessment.
