Research Objective: Safe Buildings

Intent: to provide a safe built environment in which people may live, work and socialise. This may be achieved through enhanced understanding of why safety problems arise and how hazardous building environments affect people. It will also provide new concepts for creating a safe environment using cost-effective construction methods.

Projects

Project: Human Behaviour in Fire

The NZBC recognises the importance of incorporating into fire safety design the way people interact with their environment. The concept of 'purpose groups' is used (on the basis of human activity carried out in a fire compartment) to determine the level of fire protection required. Problems arise when human behaviour characteristics are assumed to validate fire engineering solutions. A comprehensive summary of current research and literature on human behaviour in fire will be the starting point in providing a resource for fire engineers that incorporates actual data and information on human behaviour.

Project: Design Fires for Fire Engineering

Lack of a generally accepted verification method for fire engineering design leads to different assumptions being made by different fire engineers for similar design projects. Different assumptions about materials, fire growth rate, soot and species yield can lead to very different conclusions in producing a fire engineering design. Working from a number of sources within New Zealand and overseas, a database of design fires and fire engineering design guidelines will be established. This will provide reliable data that in turn will lead to consistency and confidence in fire engineering design.

Project: Seismic Performance of Complete Houses

Although NZS 3604 attempts to apply rational engineering principles to ensure earthquake (and wind) resistance of houses, it is based on experience derived in the main from laboratory work with components, such as foundations, floors, walls and roofs, rather than complete houses. For complete houses, there is considerable contribution to earthquake and wind resistance from so-called non-structural components, and these effects are difficult to measure and model on a laboratory scale. A suite of experiments is proposed that will examine laboratory shake table tests on building elements, such as walls, and on small houses, and pseudodynamic testing of houses in the field. This will link with the CUREE (Consortium of Universities for Research into Earthquake Engineering) multimillion dollar research programme on wood-frame housing in the USA.

Project: Repair of Earthquake Damaged Houses

After an earthquake in New Zealand there is going to be a very high demand for assessors to quickly determine the extent of damage to houses and the repair procedures necessary. The assessors will be drawn from a wide range of occupations, and may not have deep understanding of damage assessment and repair. Initial work has produced defect and repair details for common materials/construction methods. These are being collated into the Earthquake Damage Assessment Catalogue being prepared for the Earthquake Commission. Many more building elements will be assessed in the next year.

Other safe building projects include:

• behaviour of composite steel/concrete floor slabs in fire
• external flame spread in the Vertical Channel Test
• smoke production in fires
• design fire construction kit
• flame spread and fire-retardant coatings
• combination sprinkler systems - further research
• post-flashover fire modelling
• evaluating the predictive capacity of BRANZFIRE (see Resources for the Industry)
• fire protection of New Zealand's traditional Maori buildings
• floor serviceability - development of acceptance criteria
• seismic design of thin precast-concrete panels
• wind-safe facades
• engineered light-timber-framed buildings
• multifunctional timber joints
• restraining non-structural components during earthquake
• torsional design of multi-storey buildings.