by Ashavaree Sahoo, 3M India
Fire Safety Engineering is the application of science and engineering principles to protect people, property, and their environments from the harmful and destructive effects of fire and smoke. It encompasses engineering which focuses on fire detection, suppression, and mitigation. Fire Engineering seeks to provide a fool-proof method of designing buildings and facilities for life safety and property protection in the event of unwanted fire. Fire development is typically categorized into three regimes: growth, full development, and decay. The fire engineering scope includes fire detection, active fire protection, passive fire protection, smoke control and management, building layout design, fire dynamics, escape facilities and risk analysis.
In the regulatory reform, the industrialized world is adopting performance-based codes for fire safety design. Performance-based design requires application engineers to seek out and appropriately apply engineering tools to access the performance-based designs. With a strong scientific foundation, developed through research and designs; more innovative designs can be implemented. These designs will prevent ignition, fire spread, limitation of fire growth, evacuation provision, load-bearing capacity of structures and prevention of spread of fire.
Fire protection engineers identify risks and design safeguards that aid in preventing, controlling, and mitigating the effects of fires. Fire engineers assist architects, building owners and developers in evaluating building’s life safety and property protection goals. And review for performance-based fire engineering solutions submitted in support of local building regulations.
The most important parameter in fire safety engineering is heat release because it quantifies the size of fire. The fire safety aspects consider is the design of buildings, materials and products used in construction work that has a significant influence. The fire safety assessment of construction products should be enhanced that contributes to the improvement of design of fire-safe building. With the various aspects of assessing the fire safety of construction products related to the initiation and development of fire and the determination of toxic smoke gases.
We are constantly innovating our fire protection solutions and upgrading them to meet the challenges of modern-day firestop industry. Our endeavor is to supply the best in class and industry leading solutions to make structures safer and durable. At 3M, we apply science in collaborative ways to improve lives daily and are always in pursuit of solutions that make lives better. There is a strong thread that connects our four business groups to the vast amount of science we do and the thousands of scientists and researchers we have around the world - it's our research and development that helps produce more than 3,500 patents each year and a steady stream of unique products for customers to help them with design challenges and sustainability.
With our four major technology in fire science such as intumescent, ablative, endothermic and insulative, 3M provides firestop solutions for a variety of industries such as health care facilities, commercial construction, oil & gas industry and passenger rail. The proven 3M technologies that helps you to the meet code compliance requirements.
With our core technologies for fire protection, we have products that protect critical circuitry against standard fires and in intense hydrocarbon heat in oil & gas industry. These are proven applications for refinery protection in high-intensity fires with advanced protection for your most critical assets. And with the broadest line of passive fire protection options for construction projects, the application engineers successfully help with engineering judgments when you find situations that aren’t in the specifications or based on project specific design requirements. We facilitate fire protection program with technical expertise to specific application requirements with installer facility training programs.
As the primary appliers of fire protection research, the fire protection engineers form one of the principal links between researchers and the end users of fire protection technology. We solve problems quickly with our unsurpassed fire protection expertise. Continually evolving technologies, plus innovations such as the 3M Fire and Water Barrier Tape, which has infection control built in. It minimizes air movement by eliminating the need for a sprayer, making it the top tool for health care-qualified firestop contractors. Easy-to-install protection for contractors to ease the application and adhere to code compliance requirements.
3M has a long-standing commitment to sustainability, and it is a core value of our company that derives us to innovate products that are LEED certified for the building environment.
To achieve innovation, the application engineers need to be at the forefront of our activities. The design firms have to be supported by a professional community where research is encouraged, and where the risks are defined, controlled, and understood. The design framework therefore comprises two parts: A statutory part comprising laws, regulations standards and other rules, and a contractual part which incorporates planning, cost budgets, design, specifications, schedules, and quality assurance procedures.
The application engineers play a vital role in the approval process comprises application, assessment, decision, compliance, dispute resolution, and regulation support. The application engineers need to understand the variation in the building regulations, standards, and codes of practice of different countries to help the design firms with solutions that are based on regulatory framework.
We are involved in almost all major building and infrastructure projects, enabling amazing buildings to be designed, constructed, and occupied. We play critical roles in high hazard industries, helping to mitigate risks and achieve acceptable levels of safety. We undertake groundbreaking research and develop new technologies aimed at reducing the impacts of unwanted firehas seen considerable advancement in computational tools for FSE. Advancements in cost-effective computing and graphical user interfaces has resulted in widespread use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for fire effects modeling, finite element (FE) tools for fire response of structures analysis, and human behavior and evacuation models
The 3M Building Knowledge link helps to explore systems and products for the commercial construction industry to Build Smarter. We facilitate and support fire science and engineering programs which can deliver practitioners and researchers with the capabilities how to integrate fire safety performance for a building.
