Fire Resisting Doors - Essay Example

Fire Resisting Doors Fire Resisting doors have become an absolute necessity of offices, business premises, residences and corporate industries. The fire incidences are frequented very year and the need for fire resisting doors is increasing day by day. The occupational safety measures for the workers, assets, files, machines and goods require fire protection doors at an ever-enhanced rate. There are many industries in UK, America, Germany and Canada that are manufacturing fire protection doors for the consumers all over the world. This report is intended at bringing out various salient features and specifications of the fire protection doors. The report includes the following, 1- List and description of the principle component of a fire resisting door set. 1-Door hardware is made up of timber, steel, gypsum and vermiculite boards. There are automatic or manual closing devices, locks, latches, hinges, thresh holds and door sweeps. 2- Seals including smoke seal for gasket ting the passage of smokes, and instrument strips, neoprene weather stripping. Seals are the nodes of fire door, which usually composed of intumescing materials for critical performance under fire conditions. The products from which these seals are made are different in their characteristics of charring, expansion, composition, volume and other chemical properties. Fire Door showing Strips in Red, blue, green colors 3- Windows, made from other panel materials. There are many fire doors that are provided with internal windows and they also have standard fire resisting ratings. These windows are subject to the overall fire protection doors certification and specification at the time of manufacturing of the doors. These windows are supposed to remain intact under all fire conditions. These windows are made up of ceramic glass, wire mesh glass, borosilicate glass or liquid sodium silicates, which are filled between the crevices of windowpanes. Other than the door leaf that is also called the swinging panel of the door, there is also another component called the doorframe that has to meet the fire grade rated regulations. All these components taken together make the assembly and place the structure together in one place and commonly known as a door set. 2- How to recognize the intended fire resistance standard of the door set. The intended fire resistances of the door set are subject to the adherence of product certification requirements acceptable to the authorities of local jurisdiction, building codes and fire code. These are different from country to country. For instance in UK the British Standard Fire Resistance Test BS/EN 1634-1 2000 is applied (The Building regulations 2000). The concerned institute with all details of the construction and pressure readings records the required results. The tests are performed for thirty minutes. However, combustibility is the main feature of test. The fire resistance ratings are the standard fire resistance test that can also be simply quantified as a measure of the resistance time along with other criteria The following criteria describes the most commonly implied international time versus temperature curves in order to measure the resistibility of fire protection doors in different countries. In Netherlands, Germany, France, North America and Canada, time/temperature curves are used for testing fire resistance ratings. For passive fire protection system and different tunnels. For example in Germany a door test regime has to have the duration of 90 minutes according to T90 designation (Fulbright Cristina, 2001). Canadian Institute of Construction Research (NBC) requires 50 PA positive pressures in furnace in order to create a difference between indoor and outdoors temperatures. In NAFTA area the temperature of 140 to 180 degree centigrade are applied for fire endurance tests. Similarly there are class 125 rating, class 150 rating and class 350 rating (NFPA 80 Standard for Fire Doors and Other Opening Protective 2007 Edition, Annex D Fire Door and Fire Window Classifications, section D.5). However, the most commonly used fire resisting tests are time to temperature curves. 3- The fire resisting door that includes a glazed panel in one building Fire protection is selected and described as below; Wellington Glazed Fire Door Wellington fire doors also known as internal fire doors are frequently specified in new buildings. These are also installed in third floors and above. Buildings with shared occupancy or a garage can also have them fitted. Their thickness is usually 44mm, and in order to comply with regulations these doors require fitting in and their appropriate casing with proper smoke seals (www.chinadoors.com). Generally these fire doors cannot be cut down in other sizes, except reducing their size at bottom of the door slightly. Some of these doors are previously factory glazed. They are also later painted or varnished. Some of the doors under the category of glazed panes doors are included in the FD30 Unfinished Fire Doors/ resistance 30 minute) and FD60 résistance 1 hour and Fire Doors (Unfinished). These glazed panel doors are mostly used in the residential buildings therefore, their specifications comply with the requirement of houses delicacy and decency of architecture. 4- Brief discussion on the suitability of the door used its condition and comment on its likely effectiveness as a fire resisting barrier. Buildings are always compartmented in order to delay the spread of fire; these compartments are linked by the means of fire doors. Such glazed door sets perform two specific functions in a fire, when open they provide a way to escape and when closed they act as a barrier to fire spread. A fire resistant door should hinder the passage of fire and smoke, it should also hinder combustibility. A well designed glazed timber door is the most suitable one if used in such compartmented buildings, as it delays the spread of fire while allowing free movement of people and goods. Timber glazed door also hinders excessive transmission of products of combustion, which poses danger to the safe use of escape routes. Timber door can be used as fire-stop door as well as fire-check or fire-resisting door, dependent on its location. The glazed fire protection door also gives the suitability for looking through and controlling the fire in case of an unfortunate fire accident (Cristobel Kay, 2004). The real performance of a glazed fire resistance doors has to be calculated by having it subjecting to the standardized procedure that is basically specified in BS 476: Part 22: 1987. These Tests are made on complete hardware including door assemblies, the door and frame with all the necessary accessories (NFPA 80 Standard for Fire Doors and Other Opening Protective 2007 Edition, section 4.8.4.1). The set is then fixed in a wall that represents its usual use in practice. In the way of testing a particular glazed timber door in one type of frame and using it in another for can give no guarantee of its behavior under particular fire conditions. Conclusion of the report A well designed fire door will certainly delay the stray spread of fire and smoke without causing any hindrance to the movement of individuals and goods. Different parts of a building are in fact separated from each other, into the actual compartments of a fire-resisting specified construction. Any sort of openings that lead from them will certainly have fire doors in order to maintain an efficacious fire barrier and must prevent extraneous transmission of combustion products that can interfere with the safe and sound use of prescribed escape routes (www.compliance.gov/forms-pubs/eresources/fastfacts_firedoors.pdf -). . Every fire door is, therefore, particularly required to behave as a barrier for the passage of smoke and blazing fire to various degrees depending upon its particular location in a given building and the fire crisis, thus associated with the building. Consequently, the given functions of fire doors are in fact, to provide appropriate resistance to the passage through of smoke and other products of combustion during the earlier stages of a fire (Shiva Ditta. 2005). Other important function is supposed to provide the safe barrier to a well-blazed fire without permitting it and its products through the crevices. A main Fire Resisting Door featured at a hospital. Sources 1- The Building regulations 2000, Fire safety, Approved Document B - Volume 2 Buildings other than Dwelling houses. 2-NFPA 80 Standard for Fire Doors and Other Opening Protective 2007 Edition, section 4.8.4.1 3-As documented in the NFPA 80 Standard for Fire Doors and Other Opening Protective 2007 Edition 4- www.compliance.gov/forms-pubs/eresources/fastfacts_firedoors.pdf - 5-www.directdoors.com/exterior-doors-interior-doors-handles-locks-and-all-other-types.../fire-doors/interior-fire-doors-c38 6- www.Chinadoors.com 7- Office of Forms Compliance Los Angeles USA 8- Cristobel Kay, 2004, Fire protection in an institution. Hague Fir department press Hague. 9- Shiva Ditta. 2005, Fire incidents and public protection. New Delhi University press India 10. Fulbright Cristina, 18, March 2001, Fire Hazards and event management. German Press notes. Read More