Effects of sprinkler systems reliability on fire design of steel structures

Abstract

Automatic sprinkler systems are an effective way to reduce the risk of potential fire events in building. The new fire regulations in Finland have opened up new opportunities to incorporate the effect of sprinklers in building design. It has been shown that in many cases the amount of passive protection of steel members can be reduced significantly or even be left out, if the sprinkler system operates as designed. For robust and fire safe design solutions, it is of great importance that the sprinkler reliability levels and the performance-based design methods used are well justified. This paper introduces a research which aimed at determining sprinkler system reliability levels in typical building projects and estimating the benefits of incorporating system reliability in structural fire design of steel structures.