• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.265-285
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• 2018

This paper presents a state-of-the-art review on the design, research and education aspects of fire safety engineering (FSE) with a particular concern on high-rise buildings. FSE finds its root after Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, followed by Great London Fire in 1666. The development of modern FSE is continuously driven by industry revolution, insurance community and government regulations. Now FSE has become a unique engineering discipline and is moving towards performance-based design since 1990s. The performance-based fire safety design (PBFSD) involves identification of fire safety goals, design objectives, establishment of performance criteria, and selection of proper solutions for fire safety. The determination of fire scenarios and design fires have now become major contents for PBFSD. To experience a rapid and positive evolution in design and research consistent with other engineering disciplines, it is important for fire safety engineering as a profession to set up a special educational system to deliver the next-generation fire safety engineers. High-rise buildings have their unique fire safety issues such as rapid fire and smoke spread, extended evacuation time, longer fire duration, mixed occupancies, etc., bringing more difficulties in ensuring life safety and protection of property and environment. A list of recommendations is proposed to improve the fire safety of high-rise buildings. In addition, some source information for specific knowledge and information on FSE is provided in Appendix.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2021.05a
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• pp.53-54
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• 2021

Grenfell Tower was renovated in 2014 and 2016 at a high cost to replace the exterior materials, windows and co-heating facilities of the building. The exterior materials used during the repair work were sandwich panels filled with polyethylene and plastic, which were expanded on the aluminum metal surface. It is a product called Celotex RS 5000, a low-resolution but inexpensive repair material, and is currently an external material that cannot be used in high-rise buildings. Similar domestic fire cases began to focus social attention on the safety of high-rise buildings through the Busan Residential Complex Fire (2010), Uijeongbu Urban Living Housing Fire (2015), and Ulsan Residential Complex Fire (2020), and residents' safety concerns are increasing. In Korea, the occurrence and risk of similar fires are high, so setting up fire prevention measures through fire case investigation is considered the most basic measure in securing human safety. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the status of fire damage caused by domestic and foreign eruptions, domestic and international research status and related regulations on external materials and windows starting from the Grenfell Tower fire in England.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.82-90
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• 2009

Natural smoke ventilator is one of domestic prescriptive methods to be used to exhaust smoke in case of fire in a high-rise buildings. The goal of this study is to evaluate the stack effect and the smoke exhaust performance in high-rise buildings with the opening of natural smoke ventilators using computer modeling technology, thus to estimate its effectiveness as a tool of smoke exhaust. For this purpose, the pressure differential in a domestic high-rise building with natural smoke ventilators was experimentally measured to analyze the stack effect with the closure or the opening of natural smoke ventilators and to calculate compensated air leakage of the building. Computer modeling based on experimentally measured data was carried out to estimate effectiveness of natural smoke ventilators in high-rise buildings using CONTAMW network program.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.65-71
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• 2012

Changes in the styles of communities are leading of increases in the number of high-rise apartments and commercial-apartment structures. Tall high-rise structures, while presenting unique economies of scale and cost effectiveness, tend to be highly engineered and complex structures. In the event of a fire, this complexity in design also results in a complexity in the behavior of fire propagation and control. High-rise structures are among the most potentially dangerous due to the high population density in the building, and the inherent limitations on evacuation and on fire control services. One of the most critical points of fire propagation is the movement of fire through the outer wall structures. Controlling such propagation is essential in controlling the spread of the fire throughout the building itself, as well as controlling the potential for its spread to adjacent buildings. In this study, we will be examining the potential for fire control design and effects mitigation using a 1/4.5 scale model. The primary focus of the study will be the effects of extended balconies into the structure of high-rise apartments. The authors will also consider the effectiveness of reduced-scale model tests.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.23-30
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• 2013

This paper explains the Japanese present situations relevant to the fire resistance performance. Performance-based fire provisions was introduced in 1998 for the first time when the Building Standard Law was amended. However, performance-based fire resistance design had been used since long before the official introduction of performance-based provisions. A Comprehensive Technology Development Project of Ministry of Construction from 1982 to 1986 established a technical basis for performance-based fire safety engineering in Japan. A system of calculation methods for fire resistance verification was prescribed in the Ministry Notification in 2000 utilizing the results of this project as a background. This method, referred to as the Fire Resistance Verification Method (FRVM), is the standard method to verify the fire resistance performance of principal building parts such as columns, beams, and walls of steel, concrete, or wood structured buildings. For tall buildings, however, more advanced method for performance verification is often necessary because new building materials or structural systems are often used for these buildings. An example project of tall building owned by a major newspaper company is presented in this paper. Advanced thermal deformation analysis is executed to secure the fire resistance of the building.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2021.05a
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• pp.170-171
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• 2021

In Korea, the concentration of cities has led to the high-rise and deep-rise of buildings. In the case of such high-rise buildings, there is a high risk of fire, and the number of internal fires expanding to the outside continues to increase. The Korean Building Act continues to change the ban on combustible exterior materials, and combustible exterior materials are currently not available for buildings with three stories or more than 9 meters, and detailed test standards for finishing materials are also strengthened after the Ulsan residential and commercial fires in 2020. However, the path of fire in the actual building is through a series of processes in which the fire in the compartment grows internally and expands through openings supplied with ventilation factors. Therefore, other than just external materials, design criteria for embedded materials also need to be established. The purpose of this study is to compare standards for internal and external materials at home and abroad and to secure basic data for fire safety design of buildings based on them.

• Proceedings of the Korea Institute of Fire Science and Engineering Conference
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• 1997.11a
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• pp.361-368
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• 1997

Summary of experiments for the investigation of a fire which caused an upward fire spread for over 12 floors through balconies in a high-rise apartment complex is reported. The experiments include indoor tests to obtain fire properties of vertical PMMA fences and outdoor ones with a full scale model of the balcony. The test results suggest significance of the increase of total flame height by the merging of flames and a cooperative effect of the burning of the PMMA fence and combustibles on the balconies for the generation of a tall flame enough to cause ignition on the upper floors.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.20 no.1 s.69
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• pp.42-48
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• 2005

The present study investigates the effect of balcony on external smoke movement of high rise building through the fire tests of the 1/10 reduced model scale using Froude scaling. A hexane pool fire is used to examine the smoke movement for various opening sizes of balcony and temperature distributions are measured by T-type thermocouples. Also, hydrogen bubble technique is applied to visualize the smoke movement near the balcony. Measured temperatures of the closed balcony is 2.5 times higher than those of the open balcony because the external smoke in case of the closed balcony rise along the vertical wall. The maximum vertical temperature of partially closed balcony is similar with fully closed balcony and mean temperature inside of balcony increases as opening size of balcony decreases. The experimental results show that the balcony space plays an important roles in preventing fire propagation and cooling of smoke layer. In order to ensure the fire safety in high rise building design, a series of systematic researches are required to examine the various type of balconies.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.59-79
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• 2001

The paper proposes alternatives for fire safety in architectural planning through heat-smoke distribution related to openings so that we decrease casualty and property loss by fire and lay a great emphasis on building high-rise apartments with consideration of fire safety in Korea. An analysis program(HFA-Heat Fluid Analysis) is built to perform simultaneously numerical analysis and experimental analysis on rooms, units and buildings. In consequence, on the first, fire prevention methods are required to be set up related to openings for design rooms since the flow of heat and smoke is influenced by the type of openings in high-rise apartments. Second, the numerical analysis showed that different planning types cause to show differences in the spreading time of heat and smoke to design the units of high-rise apartments. On the third, each unit building showed different fire behavior depending on openings by numerical analysis and small scaled experiment on heat and smoke flow.

• Journal of the Korean Professional Engineers Association
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.23-27
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• 2009

In regard to the planning of building evacuation in high-rise buildings, the current ruling provisions in domestic Acts are divided into the Building Act and the Fire Services Act to stipulate the requirements of evacuation facilities and the egress plan for fire safety. This fact of two divided Acts is the one reason that the planning of complete building evacuation in case of fire in the high-rise buildings could not have been accomplished successfully on the basic design basis with the current applying procedure of the two Korean Acts.