Are You Designing Fire Alarm System In Accordance with the Code – 6

TRENDS and CONCLUSION

Trends in fire safety standards
The evolution of fire codes has seen steady and increasing sophistication in terms of practice and application. This trend is due to the increasing mass of information made available from research and forensic studies of failures and tragedies. Some trends which can be discerned can be listed as follows:

(a) Though prescriptive-based codes will still predominate in codes and standards, performance based codes will see increasing influence.

(b) Prescriptive codes will also be increasingly modified to include multiple scenario instead of simple scenario in the past. Prescriptive codes with a larger choice of scenario should not by confused with performance-based approach.

The reasons for this trend are:

(1) Harmonisation of codes (a growing international movement linked to globalisation trend) will force standards to be written on a generic basis with lee-way for multiple scenario to take into account deviations due to national conditions and practice).

(2) Increasing information and data available will enable a richer view of possible design scenarios.

(3) Increasing complexity of building projects demand more comprehensive solution.

(4) New considerations such as environmental concern and preservation of heritage are much more important issues than they use to be.

The trend above will however demand that the design or installation engineer responsible for fire safety have a higher standard of technical (and interpretation) ability. Simpler prescriptive codes of earlier times will now be more complex with higher number of parameters to contend with.

New MS1745 – Part 14 "Fire Detection and Alarm System" A working group under the supervision of Technical Committee on 'Dry Fire Protection System' is currently working towards a Malaysian Standards on Fire Detection and Alarm System. The WG has been working since 2006 and the full document be published (hopefully) in 2008. Perhaps I can get the chairman of the WG (Ir. Wong See Fong (mepengg@streamyx.com) to write a short blog on this standard in future.

Unresolved topics It can sometimes be asserted that increasing knowledge generate more question. This can be illustrated by ongoing debate over the efficacy of fire tests currently specified in cable standards, pitching cable manufacturers and standards organisation against each other (principally European-American). It is expected that specification of fire test for cables will see the most changes in the near future.

Concluding with a caveat on unfinished issues not included
As can be noted in this presentation, other issues (e.g. voice alarm system, types of detectors, type of controllers etc) pertaining to fire alarm system are not included in this presentation. The topics covered in this paper, by itself however, shows more complexity than the Consulting Engineer (in Malaysia) would be normally aware of. It is hoped that practitioners will take note that the science of Fire Safety as a multi-disciplinary engineering science warrants more attention than currently being allocated.

References

(1) NFPA70:2002 "National Electrical Code";

(2) NFPA72:2002 "National Fire Alarm Code";

(3) BS5839-1 : 2002

(4) "Fire Performance of Data Communication Cables" published by the Fluoropolymer Division, Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc, Washington DC (http:www.datacable.org).

(5) "Fire Testing of Electrical Cables for Public Transportation" Marcelo M. Hirschler, GBH International, California.

(6) "New Developments in Fire Safety Requirements for Communication Cables in North America and Europe" 2002, Draka USA (http://www.drakausa.com/)

(7) "Highlights of the New NFPA 72-2002" in 8 parts by Dean K. Wilson, P.E.

Go back to Index