- Author
-
Laramee, S. T.
- Title
- Performance Based Approach for Analysis and Evaluation of Aircraft Hangars and Similar High Ceiling Spaces.
- Coporate
- Worcester Polytechnic Inst., MA
- Report
-
THESIS,
February 1999,
305 p.
- Keywords
-
aircraft hangars
|
ceilings
|
evaluation
|
fire safety
|
design applications
|
experiments
|
heat release rate
|
temperature rise
- Abstract
- The special hazards present in aircraft hangars and the high value of the aircraft housed within make a performance-based fire safety design a cost effective, desirable alternative to the prescriptive requirements specified in traditional building codes and standards. A performance-based design approach to the fire safety design of aircraft hangars was explored in this study. An exemplar outline of a performance specification, or document defining the scope of a project based on the performance of materials and systems, was developed as part of the design process. This outline lists examples of societal fire safety goals, project specific functional objectives, qualitative performance requirements and quantitative performance criteria applicable for the fire safety design of aircraft hangars. Guidelines for analysis were also developed as part of the performance-based design process. These guidelines were used to quantify the fire and hangar environment based on some of the performance requirements and criteria outlined in the performance specification for the purpose of evaluating the adequacy of fire protection strategies used for aircraft hangars. Potential designs are evaluated based on their level of success in meeting the performance criteria defined in the performance specification. The analysis guidelines developed in this study were limited in scope to fire protection strategies specific to fire detection and focused on several key parameters which influence the fire dynamics of the space, including environmental effects, design fire properties, fire plume and ceiling jet properties, and hot gas layer properties. The analysis guidelines outlined were generated from a comparative analysis of several predictive theories of fire dynamics describing the fire and fire environment to recent full scale fire experiments conducted in two United States Navy aircraft hangars. Agreement with the data were observed for many of the theories when modified to account for influencing effects of the hangar and fire environment (e.g., hot layer temperature). The agreement of the existing and modified theories with the data was quantified into ranges encompassing the upper and lower extremes of the data. These upper and lower bound "design ranges" of each theory were then used in developing the analysis guidelines applicable for aircraft hangar fire safety.