About
Fire design of structures ensures their safe predictable performance in the event of a foreseeable fire scenario. The level of fire design depends upon a number of factors and is often determined by carrying out a fire risk assessment. Typically, requirements are set out according to Eurocode with respect to time.
Based on the requirements, a structural engineers first job is to determine the most suitable material and appropriate methods of fire protection to critical elements. The design is then undertaken according to the relevant parts of either EC2, 6 or 9.
In the past, fire design was not always considered and this has resulted in terrible consequences such as the great fire of London in 1666 which resulted in the avoidable destruction of over 132,000 homes. More recently, examples of how serious the threat of fire can be to a building and its occupants are the Bradford City Stadium fire of 1985, the collapse of The World Trade Center Twin Towers in 2001 and Grenfell Tower in 2017.