Challenges for performance-based fire safety design of steel structures and opportunities for sensor technologies

There is increasing worldwide interest in transforming building fire safety design from a prescriptive to a performance-based environment. This interest is driven by the need to provide more cost effective fire protection, to provide greater flexibility in fire safety design for complex and unusual buildings, and to provide tools to mitigate fire related hazards that follow other extreme events, including earthquakes and terrorist attacks. Steel buildings are a class of structure that pose significant challenges with respect to fire safety. Steel buildings are generally viewed as being particularly Vulnerable to fire, due to the high thermal conductivity of steel combined with the loss of stiffness and strength of steel at elevated temperatures. This paper provides a general discussion oil the importance of improved structural-fire protection design for steel buildings. Recent major fire events in steel buildings are reviewed, and key aspects of performance-based structural fire engineering are discussed. Building fire safety in general and structural fire safety in particular, provide good opportunities for implementing new sensor technologies that can enhance occupant and fire fighter safety in building fires. This paper discusses possible approaches for sensing and monitoring the overall thermal environment in a building and the temperature of steel building elements during a fire.