Ichiro Hagiwara

International Comparison of Fire Safety Provisions for Means of Escape

In this study, the provisions for means of escape in the regulations of several countries are investigated. The provisions for the number, the arrangement and the capacity of means of escape are compared among countries. Then the concept and the engineering basis of these provisions are discussed for developing performance based standards.

Survey Of Movable Fire Load In Japanese Dwellings

A survey of the movable fire load in dwellings has been conducted for apartment houses in the metropolitan area around Tokyo. Goods and furniture that are likely to be encountered were listed in advance with their figures, and the volume of goods that were stored in the containers was also asked. Collected data were converted to equivalent timber weight. The result suggest~ that the average movable fire load in a2dwelling unit is about 34 kg/m , with a standard deviation of 11.7 kg/m. There seems to be a tendency for the total movable fire load to increase with the floor area; the total fire load is also likely to increase to some extent with the length of life in that dwelling unit; most heavily loaded spaces in total weight are bedrooms, with the average of about 400 kg; common storage spaces adjoining the corridor or the washroom are most heavilY loaded per unit floor area, although they are usually narrow.

Performance-Based Provisions For Fire Safety In The Japanese Building Standard Law: How To Connect Regulation And Engineering

In Japan, a performance-based code has been added to the existing Building Standard Law (BSL), rather than making a new Law. Before the revision, performance-based design had been done under the “equivalency” concept. Today, the law itself has been transformed to allow performance-based design. The revision is a result of requests from the legal sector that the Law, rather than the Government, should set standards to rule. As a result, government discretion has become more limited. In order to preserve continuity from the past, the current BSL includes both conventional prescriptive clauses as well as performance-based ones in the evacuation and fire resistant structure sections. The most important point is to clarify the objectives of regulation and their performance criteria. To avoid disturbance of technological development, definite requirements in the BSL and the Enforcement Order have been limited only to functional expressions. To allow efficient implementation, the government has set standard verification methods, new plan review routes and executive bodies. The strategy of verification of fire safety is that each value of prescriptive requirement transfers to the time that is calculated, and performance is required for not only each components of building and their testing method, but also for a unit of the whole floor, or the whole building.

A Consideration On Common Path Length And Single Stairway

Usually, it is required by building codes that two or more escape routes be available from every point in a building for the purpose of assuring at least one available egress route should the other happen to be blocked by fire. The limitation of common path length and the requirement of two or more stairways for buildings exceeding certain size are typical examples of such requirements. Despite their vital influence on building design, lucid explanation has not been given to the adequacy of the provisions. In thls paper, the meaning of the code requirements on common path length and number of stairways are discussed, and the criterion that may be used as an alternative to such prescribed standards is derived based on the consideration of the expected number of occupants unable to escape.