@article {bnh-6226, title = {Fire Risk Assessment of Combustible Exterior Cladding Using a Collective Numerical Database}, journal = {Fire}, volume = {2}, year = {2019}, month = {02/2019}, chapter = {11}, abstract = {

Recent high-profile building fires involving highly-combustible external cladding panels inAustralia as well as Dubai, China, and the United Kingdom have created a heightened awareness bythe public, government, and commercial entities to act on the risks associated with non-compliantbuilding structures. In this paper, a database of fire events involving combustible aluminiumcomposite panels was developed based on (i) review of relevant major fire events in Australia andother countries, and (ii) numerical simulation of the ignitability, fire spread, and toxic emissionsassociated with composite panels. Through the application of large-eddy-simulation (LES)-basedcomputational fire field models, the associated risks for a standardized two-storey building withexternal cladding was considered in this study. A total of sixteen simulation cases with differentinitial sizes of the fire and different air cavity widths in the exterior cladding assembly were examinedto investigate the tolerable situations and their influences. It was discovered that for most cases,with an initial fire size greater than 400 kW/m-2, the fire will spread from the first to second floorbefore the allowed egress time period.Key

}, keywords = {fire risk assessment; combustible building materials; high-rise buildings; large eddy simulation; pyrolysis}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.3390/fire2010011}, url = {https://www.mdpi.com/2571-6255/2/1/11/htm}, author = {Timothy Bo Yuan Chen and Anthony Chun Yin Yuen and Guan Heng Yeoh and Wei Yang and Qing Nian Chan} } @conference {bnh-6507, title = {Safety awareness of firefighters and their perception of fire risks in cladding fires }, booktitle = {AFAC19 powered by INTERSCHUTZ - Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Research Forum}, year = {2019}, month = {12/2019}, publisher = {Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience}, organization = {Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Owing to the extensive use of polymers in building products, there is the urgent need to resolve the present fire risks of highly combustible cladding products. Apart from understanding the risks associated with cladding materials on buildings, it is also essential to evaluate the underlying risks of existing noncompliant materials on buildings for residents, owners, and the public, and for firefighters during the management of such fire events. In this article, a fire risk perception survey was constructed by a collaborative effort from Fire and Rescue New South Wales (FRNSW) and University of New South Wales. The survey can be subdivided into four major parts, i) demographics, ii) risk awareness and identification associated with cladding material, iii) the firefighter{\textquoteright}s own perceived risk associated with cladding fires and iv) risk mitigating behaviours. The majority of the questions are designed with five distinctive levels (i.e. ranging from rare to almost certain, or negligible to very high), and it will be distributed to firefighters from major states and rural fire agencies around Australia. The results will formulate a large and comprehensive database to increase our understanding of the firefighter{\textquoteright}s risk perception associated with combustible cladding materials.

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}, keywords = {cladding, Emergency management, fire management, Fire risk, firefighter, risk awareness}, url = {https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/australian-journal-of-emergency-management-monograph-series/}, author = {Timothy Bo Yuan Chen and Anthony Chun Yin Yuen and Qing Nian Chan and Guan Heng Yeoh} }