Performance-based fire safety engineering assessment of national museum of marine science and technology

Abstract

The concept of ocean current and fishery industry is expressed from the architectural design in using crossed exterior corridors to perform ocean current. The contrast between modern and obsolete is represented by the staggered interior design and antiquated building structure of the heritage, which is used to be North Thermal Power Plant. It is therefore partial areas which cannot fulfill the article 79-2 of Building Design and Construction Regulation mandated by Taiwan government that stipulate the requirement of any void space over 3 floors. Requirement of smoke extraction system and smoke curtain is also exempted from article 188 of Standard for Installation of Fire Safety Equipment Based on Use and Occupancy. Performance-based design is adopted by fire engineering approach as an alternative. This project passed the expert panel review of fire engineering strategies and smoke management assessment. At the stage of construction by auditing and reviewing, full-scale hot smoke test was conducted due to the safety consideration raised by local government. The results of tests are significantly different from the simulation modelling and smoke management report approved by National Fire Agency, Ministry of Interior. Visibility in partial areas is around 10 m which is not regarded as a tenable condition. After the improvement of smoke management, the study of full-scale hot smoke tests and computational simulated results are carried out. Acceptance criteria, usually smoke temperature, smoke layer height and visibility in Taiwan, are reached regardless of differences between FDS model and on-site full-scale tested values. This project provided design considerations to designer during design process, including the environmental differences of internal and external building, local weather impact, and grid size used in FDS model. The limitation and discrepancy of chosen software among different versions should be understood so that simulation results would more fit the realistic circumstances.