Fire Safety Facade Design
The case study of an office tower in Milan
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Overview
Abstract
Nowadays the construction industry is characterised by high multifunctional and complex buildings with innovative facade systems. Unlike a simple prescriptive approach according to standards and codes, a performance-based design allows to define safety levels and goals, to evaluate heat transfer to the structure and the structure response based on fire behaviour, to model different fire scenarios by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software and to personalize the design according to a specific project in order to reach the required level of safety. Through a significant case study, the paper describes the performance-based design approach in the Fire Safety Engineering field (FSE). The analysis demonstrates consistent results between the CFD fire modelling output and the laboratory test results on a real scale facade mock-up. Moreover, a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) performed on a section of the facade mullion allows to identify and to highlight the facade system critical issues in different fire scenarios.
Authors
Rigone Paolo
Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction
paolo.rigone@polimi.it
Mazzucchelli Enrico Sergio
Associate Professor
Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction
enrico.mazzucchelli@polimi.it
De la Fuente Ceja Blanca Judith
Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction
blancajudith.delafuente@mail.polimi.it
Introduction
Nowadays the construction industry is characterised by high multifunctional and complex buildings with innovative façade systems. Moreover, new materials and façade systems are continuously introduced into the market, calling for
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Background
In the construction field, fire events in façades are the less likely to occur. Nevertheless, in Europe there are many national guidelines (Rukavina et al., 2017; Mazzucchelli et al., 2019)
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CASE STUDY: THE LIBESKIND TOWER IN MILAN
The office tower case study is located in the City Life district in Milan (Italy). The main highlighted issues of the building are the concave bending of its elevations and
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DATA
The overall behaviour of the room proofs the benefit of a sprinkler system. The temperature distribution at the façade (Fig. 6) present the highest values reached at 600 seconds of
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Explanation
Different analyses have been performed to assess the real behaviour of the mullion in case of fire. To understand the accuracy between the model and the experimental test, a comparison
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Conclusion and Future Work
FSE is part of the building design, but seldom it is properly considered in detail. Relevant considerations, as well as decisions, must be taken in regards of which kind of
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank CMB (Cooperativa Muratori e Braccianti di Carpi), FSC Engineering Srl, UNICMI (Unione Nazionale delle Industrie delle Costruzioni Metalliche dell'Involucro e dei serramenti) and EFN (European Facade Network) for the fruitful and stimulating collaboration.
Rights and Permissions
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