Window and Facade Magazine (May-June 2022) on Fire Safe Buildings

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www.wfmmedia.com Volume 8 | Issue 3 | ` 200 May - June 2022

Face to Face

Industry Speaks

Articles

AR. RAVIDEEP SINGH Associate Director, Creative Designer Architects

UDAY V SHETTY Director, Siderise India SREENIVAS NARAYANAN Technical and Compliance Director – MEI + AP, Siderise Insulation

Fire safety and façade & fenestration design & technologies Fire mitigation measures Façade inspection, performance testing & certification Fire codes & standards

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Volume 8 | Issue 3 May - June 2022 PUBLISHED BY F & F Media and Publications C-55, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase - 1, New Delhi-110 020 T: +91-11-40623356 FOUNDER Amit Malhotra TECHNICAL PANEL Mahesh Arumugam Director Meinhardt Façade Consultants KR Suresh Regional Director xis Façade Consulting A EDITORIAL Renu Rajaram renu@wfmmedia.com +91 9312864830 Shefali Bisht editorial@wfmmedia.com DESIGN & CONCEPT BY Chandan Sharma MARKETING & OPERATIONS Kapil Girotra kapil@wfmmedia.com +91 9560925255 SUBSCRIPTION & CIRCULATION Devagya Behl support@wfmmedia.com +91 9871151112 Mukesh Kumar mukesh@wfmmedia.com +91 9560088995

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Points to Consider in Fire-Resistant Façade Designs

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Fire Safety - Mitigation Measures

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Devesh Kumar, Head (GM) Product Specialist, & Solutions, Aludecor Dhiren K Gada, Sr. Manager – Sales & Operations, Sejal Intelligent Façade Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

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Role of Façade & Fenestration in Fire Safety

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Fire Safety and Fenestration Design & Technologies

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Need for Inspection and Performance Testing

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Rajesh Chander Sharma, Former Director, Delhi Fire Services Farid Khan, Director & CEO, profine India Window Technology Pvt. Ltd. Jatin Shah, Managing Director, Technical Due Diligence, Colliers India1 Need for Fire-Safe Designs and Performance Testing P Jothi Ramalingam, Director, Winwall Technology India Pvt. Ltd.

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Fire-Safe Aluminium Cladding and Fenestration

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Façades and Fenestration Fire Mitigation Measures

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Importance of Perimeter Fire Barriers in Curtain Wall Construction

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Vertical Greenery Systems – Fire Safety Implications and Routes to

Nitin Mehta, Co-Founder and Executive Director, ALCOI Piyush Shami, Fire Protection Engineer, B.E Fire Technology and Safety Engineering Aravind Chakravarthy V, Head- Codes and Approvals for Fire protection division, Hilti (India) Pvt. Ltd. Compliance

Luke Cameron, Senior Consultant - Fire & Life Safety, Middle East, WSP

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Cover Story

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Face to Face

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Industry Speaks

Fire Safe Buildings - Role of Façades and Fenestrations Featuring views and Interviews with many experts on Fire Safety Interview with Ar. Ravideep Singh, Associate Director, Creative Designer Architects Interview with Sreenivas Narayanan, Technical and Compliance Director – MEI + AP, Siderise Insulation & Uday V Shetty, Director, Siderise India Pvt. Ltd.

RNI: DELENG/2014/57870 DISCLAIMER: With regret we wish to say that publishers cannot be held responsible or liable for error or omission contained in this publication. The opinions and views contained in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers. Readers are advised to seek expert advice before acting on any information contained in this publication which are very generic in nature. The Magazine does not accept responsibility for the accuracy of claims made by advertisers. The ownership of trademarks is acknowledged. No part of this publication or any part of the contents thereof may be reproduced in any form or context without the permission of publishers in writing.

WRITE TO THE EDITOR Please address your suggestions to: The Editor, Window & Façade Magazine, C55, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase – 1, New Delhi, 110020 or email renu@wfmmedia.com. Please provide your full name and address, stating clearly if you do not wish us to print them. Alternatively log on to www. wfmmedia.com and air your views. The opinions expressed in this section are of particular individuals and are in no way a reflection of the publisher’s views.

“Printed and Published by Amit Malhotra on behalf of M/s F & F Media and Publications Printed and published at Print Plus Pvt. Ltd. Name of the Editor-Ms. Renu Rajaram”

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EDIT

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Façade and fenestration have a life-saving role in preventing the spread of fire and smoke for some time after the onset of fire. The façade of a building is one of its most vulnerable components, particularly in the event of a fire. While designing and constructing a building, aesthetics, cost, energy efficiency, materials, sustainability, and other factors take centre stage, barely considering fire safety precautions. With the relentless growth of high-rise structures, the situation has become more complicated, posing a larger fire hazard.

The huge glass facades seen in today’s gaudy buildings, when constructed without adequate provisions to deal with fire, can prove to be a death trap for its occupants.

Further, recent architectural trends coupled with sophisticated product innovations increasingly point toward higher use of glass as a fire-rated material due to its transparency, low maintenance and longevity. However, conventional soda-lime silicate glass offers extremely poor fire-resistance capabilities. All of the fire accidents in highrise buildings have two commonalities – very high response time to overcome the flames and the relative unpreparedness of both the occupants and the fire authorities to deal with escape routes and save lives. Many of the buildings do not have any firedetection system to warn their occupants.

According to the Maharashtra Fire Prevention and Life Safety Measures Act 2006, new buildings that are above 15 meters should have a well-equipped fire safety system based on the height and occupancy of the building, and the fire hazards.

Before we delve into the details of modern fire-rated systems and general fire-safety guidelines, it is important to understand the generic fire-prevention systems available today. There is a lot of ambiguity in choosing the right materials due to consideration of inappropriate/inadequate information during procurement. In the recent past, a significant shift from conventional materials to fire-retardant (FR) materials is observed in developing countries, with the spread of knowledge on standards, norms, testing and codes.

Team WFM discussed the major reasons for building fires, factors affecting fire occurrence in high-rise buildings, fire mitigation measures, the need for façade inspections, performance testing & certification, fire codes and standards, etc., with many experts including architects, engineers and consultants, and found that the main factors influencing the fire risks and spread of fire in buildings are fire safety evacuation ability, building fire prevention capability, and building fire safety management status.

Do read this edition and let us know your comments. Waiting to hear from you on what do you think about these articles.

Renu Rajaram renu@wfmmedia.com

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Fire Safety

Points to Consider in Fire-Resistant Façade Designs

A building ravaged by fire “What happens if there is a fire accident?”

“How have we correctly designed the components to react in the event of a fire?”

“Are we using the proper codes?”

“Are we answering the above questions when designing a façade?”

Accidents have occurred not only in developing countries but also in developed countries.

These accidents have occurred in places that are thought to be the safest, so why are we not alarmed?

The products used and how they react to fire should be the first consideration when

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designing a fire-rated façade. We have had a lot of debate in India, specifically, about the use of international codes, but we still don’t use them. The products in the Bill of Quantity (BOQ) are still referred to as “Class B, Class B1, Class A2, Class 1, Class 1A, Class A1, and so on”. The issue with such nomenclature is that we aren’t writing the testing parameters and code, so B, A1, and other such classes have no meaning.

This creates an advantageous situation for manufacturers and contractors, who can easily tamper with quality. As a result, understanding the code and writing the proper nomenclature is critical, and the first step.

Understanding the Fire Code The five factors to consider when selecting a product for use in a façade are as follows: 1. Flame height 2. Fire propagation 3. Smoke released 4. Molten droplets 5. Heat released The code chosen should have the test methodology to check all the above parameters. One of such codes is EN 13501 which has test parameters to check all the above properties. Accordingly, a classification for products has been prepared:

Fire Safety EN13501 Classification

Coverage

A1 & A2

Will cover products which do not contribute to the development of fire

B

Will cover products which have a very little contribution to fire

C

Will cover products which have limited contribution to fire

D

Will cover products that have a contribution to fire

E

Will cover products that have a contribution to fire and can resist ignition by a small flame for a very short period

F

Will cover products that have shown no performance criteria

So, depending on the façade, we can select a product that meets EN13501 Class A2 or Class B. It is also necessary to test the entire system that is being installed. The generic what we’re writing is still not a testing process, but rather a simple line like “the system should withstand fire for 2 hours”. Again, without a code or a testing procedure, this has no meaning. Codes such as NFPA 285 or BS8414 are available to test the entire installation. These tests are designed to simulate a real-world fire scenario and determine whether or not the entire system is capable of spreading fire. In this article, we’ll look at NFPA 285 as an example of fire performance testing for external cladding.

The following details are included in the façade design that passes the test: • The product used for the façade shall be Class B or A2 in accordance with EN13501 • The details of structural support are provided • The positioning of fire stoppers is depicted This test evaluates the overall performance of the cladding system.

The key point to remember is that “if the product passes the test, it will pass in all scenarios” is not correct. Therefore, the report includes a detailed description of cladding, including all of its elements and the system’s design”.

This means that if the product is installed with the same system, only it will pass the test and the situation will not become generic.

EN13501-1 SBI Testing for checking Fire Growth, Smoke and THR

NFPA-Testing - Testing of materials and systems for fire safety

Certifications/Test Reports Fire certification is specific to a product line. For example, if the alloy grade AA3105 is mentioned in the certificate, then the ACP of AA3105 is certified and not any other alloys such as AA1100, AA3003, AA5005, and so on that could be used to make ACP. This means that the manufacturer may or may not provide you with a product with the same fire rating as AA3105. As a result, we must ensure the product range specified in the certificate. The product should be certified, and the validity of the certification can be checked with the certifying agency, as the certifying agency is required to make the certification public on its official website.

What to Add in the Bill of Quantity (BOQ) We should always include the following two points for Fire properties in the product description and installation procedures in the BOQ: • The product must pass Class B (or any other classification depending on the cladding design) of EN13501 (the product’s fire code), and it must have a factory production certificate WFM | MAY - JUNE 2022

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Fire Safety •

•

that is valid for the duration of the project. If we simply write Class B, it could fall under any code description, which could be fire-related or not.

As a result, writing the code is critical.

The cladding design must pass NFPA 285 (or any other system test) and the system must be the same as shown in the test report; if there are any changes from the design in the test report, the contractor must submit a new test report with the changed system design.

The code is important, and the specific design must pass the test. If the system design differs from what is stated in the test report, the design may or may not pass the test. These points would ensure that the product and design are fire safe. Also, generic statements such as “2 hours fire resistance” should be avoided because they have no meaning without a code and testing process.

Design Checks for Fire In the case of a façade, people usually check the system’s performance for water and air penetration. In addition, the system’s behaviour under a specific wind load is examined, i.e., whether the system is structurally stable under the calculated wind loads or not.

However, few people check the performance of fire.

Manufacturers of components such as fire stop, insulation, rain screen product, and so on should be contacted when designing a fire-safe façade. They

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must provide the fire properties of their product and assist in the development of appropriate methodologies for making the design fire safe. The contractor should submit the design along with the system’s fire test report, just as he does for water penetration, air penetration, structural stability, and so on. If using an older test report that has passed the fire test, the contractor should ensure that there are no changes in the location of fire stoppers, that the panel sizes remain the same, and that the thickness of the back support may be increased according to wind load, and that the number of screws used to attach the panels remain the same or increase and never decrease. Any of the critical products’ fire properties must also remain unchanged.

Conclusion In the BOQ, product nomenclatures with complete codes should be used, and certification for the specific product being used should be requested.

There should be no generic certifications accepted. When the product manufacturer requests system tests, the methodology and materials for installation must remain the same and should not be treated as valid for all construction and installation.

The façade contractor must perform system tests for the specific installation methodology. These changes could provide 90 per cent relief from accidents turning into major tragedies, allowing us to save lives while also controlling property damage.

DEVESH KUMAR

Head (GM) Product Specialist & Solutions, Aludecor ABOUT THE AUTHOR Devesh Kumar is a Civil Engineer with 17 years of experience, 11 of which he has worked in the façade industry.

He has designed metal façades and has participated in fire testing and the design of fire-rated metal composite panels. Apart from this, he has also conducted workshops for architectural students on metal façade design at various colleges such as the School of Planning and Architecture in Delhi, IIT Kharagpur, Sir JJ College of Architecture in Mumbai, and others.

Devesh Kumar is an FR expert on ACPs with Aludecor (www.aludecor. com), India’s premier and leading brand of metal composite panels. For any queries on FR composite panels, for more information, contact: info@aludecor.com.

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Fire Safety

Fire Safety - Mitigation Measures construction consultants who are practically working at sites. It should be mandatory to follow the guidelines given by site safety officers for all kinds of safety measures including fire safety.

All the construction equipment and tools which are combustible but necessary to use during construction. E.g. Gas / Electric Welding machines, etc. must be used safely and with maintaining the required distance from the other combustible material and also should store safely to avoid any unpredictable incidents.

Building with various passive and active fire safety mitigation materials to be incorporated during construction

F

ire accidents can happen during construction and postconstruction, or after any structure is occupied. It can be a residential building, commercial office building, or factory building. During the event of a fire, most people die due to smoke inhalation and panic situations. To resolve the issue of trapped smoke, various materials and systems are available. Design can be developed by architects and construction consultants to control panic situations. Proper guidelines should be disseminated and regular training and drill must be conducted from time to time.

Firstly, we have to ensure that fire accident should not happen due to any human error, secondly, if the fire accident happens due to any reason, by natural or by human error, in such situation a plan must be ready for how to come out from the panic situation with zero loss of life.

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To mitigate the fire safety concern during the period of construction, it’s the responsibility of all the stakeholders including builders, architects and

Automatic fire smoke ventilation system – the image shows how the smoke can be let out with the help of smoke ventilation and fresh air can come in

Automatic smoke escape ventilators, which can be installed on the rooftop of the bungalow, and in any window in a high rise or low rise building

Fire Safety help senior citizens to escape. The lift machine room shall be separate and no other machinery be installed in it. The route to the fire escape shall be free of obstructions at all times.

Smoking shall be prohibited in all areas where there is a profusion of combustible materials. Easily readable “NO SMOKING” signs must be conspicuously posted at locations where they can catch the eye.

Each sign must also include a pictograph.

The sign may also be illuminated.

Products to use in buildings for fire safety

To mitigate the fire safety concerns, one should understand the ancient structures built with different kinds of materials and the building design as they did. In our era, we have more options in material selection and to use in building construction. Then too we are facing more challenges of fire accidents every year.

At the same time, one should also use good quality reusable products as per standards which are eco-friendly, just like glass and aluminium, etc. One should also strictly follow the safety norms given under NBC (National Building Code) 2016. To reduce the cost of construction one should not compromise on the quality of products. Government should take initiative and strictly define the fire safety product that must be used in all kinds of building structures in urban as well as rural areas too.

Fire escape shall be constructed of noncombustible materials. The combustible/ flammable material shall not be used for partitioning, wall panelling, false ceiling etc. Any material giving out toxic gases/ smoke if involved in the fire shall not be used for partitioning of a floor or wall panelling or a false ceiling etc. There are many defined and proven materials available in the market which can help to mitigate the fire safety concern like – Fire resistance safety glass, fire resistance metal doors, fire wool, water sprinklers,

Fire door for an electric unit

fire-resisting electric cables, fire alarms, smoke seals, smoke detectors, fixed carbon-di-oxide /foam/d-co water spray extinguishing system, static water storage tank, etc. Fixing an automatic smoke exit window, which opens if the smoke is detected above the defined restricted percentage is also essential.

A building must have identified fire exits with proper empty space to rescue the people trapped inside. All fire escapes shall be directly connected to the ground floor. There should be a provision for separate fire exit lifts to

Staircase fire exit door - Showing fire exit plan, fire exit door with panic handle, Fire Alarm to direct and escape person trapped inside and fire extinguisher and water extinguisher to slow down the active fire

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Fire Safety

One of case study newspaper image of Lotus Business Park in Andheri (W) - a 22 story commercial building where a fire accident happened in July 2014

As an alternative, a door which gives direct access to a balcony which is suitable for rescue by ladder or for escape should be designed.

Windows are one of the most important parts of the building; the window should have an openable section which provides an unobstructed clear open area of at least 0.33 sq m. The height should be not less than 450 mm, the width should be not less than 450 mm, and the opening section should be capable of remaining in the position which provides this minimum clear open area. It is important to note that lockable handles or restrictors, which can only be released by removable keys or other tools, should not be fitted to window opening sections for escape or rescue.

Building regulations are making fire rated windows a requirement in an increasing amount of building types, particularly in high-rise buildings. In certain circumstances, glass, windows and façades must be fire-resistant. They must prevent fire spread, provide a safe

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escape route, offer ventilation, ensure that a building’s structure will not be affected, and provide safe access to the building in the event of a fire. Therefore, it is incredibly important to ensure that your building is fitted with fire-rated windows appropriate to your building type along with a fire-rated glass of 30, 60, 90 and 120 minutes as per requirement.

Conclusion There must be basic awareness among all stakeholders, right from the person who is designing the dream structure to the person who is going to occupy the area for living or for a commercial purpose, with respect to fire safety mitigation measures. The awareness can be spread by the government, fire safety departments, fire safety material manufacturing companies, etc.

To control the active fire, one should through with the guidelines of fire safety post-construction in an occupied building. Passive fire mitigation measures should be followed during the design and construction of the building.

DHIREN K GADA

Sr. Manager – Sales & Operations, Sejal Intelligent Façade Solutions Pvt Ltd ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dhiren Gada is the Senior Manager – Sales & Operations at the façade engineering company - Sejal Intelligent Façade Solutions Pvt Ltd. He has many years of experience in architectural glass manufacturing and the façade engineering industry. He has worn many hats working with sales to production to operations teams and beyond.

His favourite part about working is the opportunity to take on new challenges every day and grow his skills. He holds a Master’s Degree in professional accounts. Apart from that, he also holds certification in Fire Resistant Glazing work. Working with Sejal Group, he is focusing on the vision of CMD of Sejal Group, Amrut S. Gada, to make façade industry a more educated, organised and well-developed ecosystem, and on bringing new generation leaders into the industry.

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Fire Safety

Role of Façade & Fenestration in Fire Safety windows & doors in a building”. This part i.e.“windows” was seen totally missing in most of the glass façade buildings built in the past.

Roll of Walls/Façade The role played by the external walls or façade of any building, especially in the event of an outbreak of fire, becomes more relevant in such buildings. The balconies are a regular feature in normal buildings. This feature is normally missing in the glass façade building.

The external walls protect a building from the external climatic conditions and keep the interior comfortable for the people living in the building. The buildings need to be strong enough to face the extreme climatic conditions, to which the area is likely to be exposed.

We also need to have natural light ventilation, a clean environment, parking space, space for movement of fire engines, and water for firefighting, etc. The requirements in these regards are well defined and specified in the NBC. Most of these requirements are the same for glass façades, as well as other buildings, however, it is the internal division of the building, which makes the notable difference, so far as fire safety and means of escape are concerned.

A glass façade building in Gurugram, with no visible, Openable windows.

Breaking the toughened glass may be extremely difficult for external intervention, even with ALPs

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n looking at the literal meaning of the ‘façade & fenestration’ it is known that façade means “the front wall of a large building that you see from the outside” or “the way somebody/ something appears to be, which is not the way it really is”.

It may be seen that in many of the socalled commercial buildings, it is not the front wall alone, but the buildings having glass façades on all sides.

The meaning of fenestrations is “the arrangement, proportioning & design of

This difference is mainly because the normal office buildings have a central corridor, ventilated on both ends and with rooms on either side. The space above the false ceiling is normally used for AC ducts and other services. The rooms are provided with a number of doors as per the size and occupancy of the rooms. The arrangement is more or less similar in the case of institutional WFM | MAY - JUNE 2022

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Fire Safety The incident normally starts as a small fire, which may spread to the entire room of origin. The smoke and heat start filling the room, and the accumulation of the smoke and hot gases will take place near the ceiling level. The smoke and heat will remain confined to that room, if there are no openings in the floors or the walls, below or above the false ceiling. The sprinkler provided in the room at ceiling level will come into operation within a minute as the temperature reaches about 680C.

A glass façade building in Gurugram, with no visible, Openable windows. are visible. Breaking the toughened Glass may be extremely difficult for external intervention, even with ALPs

This smoke and heat may travel to other rooms in the same zone, i.e. rooms which are served by the same Air Handling Units (AHU), even if the AHU is designed to stop through an auto-tripping, on the operation of the automatic fire alarm system. Provision of a fire damper at every entry and return air passage in each room may however keep the smoke and

buildings (hospitals - for the wards, OPD etc.) These may however have other internal arrangements for the utilisation of the available space in the required manner.

Buildings in IT Sector The business/ office buildings in IT sector normally have huge floor space, only separated by a few feet high partitions.

The large-sized floors are provided with air-conditioning through AC ducts provided in the space above the false ceiling. The buildings are also provided with fire suppression facilities, as required under the law. The people, who are likely to use the fire & life safety arrangements before arrival of fire service will depend on the fact, whether people are on 24x7 working, with or without sleeping risk, or 8 hours working during the day shift only.

The Scenario in Case of Fire Fire in a normal building having walled construction:

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fire confined to the room of origin for a reasonable time depending on many other factors.

Effect of the Internal Spread of Smoke The main effect of smoke is the reduction in visibility, difficulty in breathing & panic, etc. for the occupants. Any delay in the beginning of evacuation or commencement of the fire fighting process is likely to make the egress by the occupants as well as entry for the firemen for rescue or fire fighting difficult.

Can it be managed externally (without entering the building), or by using portable means of smoke venting?

Certainly not. Then what is the solution? It is possible by having builtin facilities for natural or mechanical smoke venting or smoke management facility, which can be used in the event of a fire. Are we taking care of this as of now? Perhaps not.

The air-conditioning requirements of a glass façade building are different in terms of the size/volume of the internal compartments. The spread of smoke from a small/ slow fire in a large volume compartment may take more time to reduce the visibility to a difficult level but a fast-spreading fire or delayed action in tackling the incident may result in difficulty for the people in the building as well as firemen responding on to the fire call.

A high-rise building of approx 100 m plus, no visible openable windows on the façade.

All super high rise buildings abut directly on the road. No side setback is provided in these buildings. The built-in fire suppression and means of escape are generally well maintained. No encroachment is allowed and no vehicle can even stop no question of parking.

The Present Arrangement We mostly do not have any special facility to manage the smoke and hot gases in the event of a fire, even in the hospital buildings, where the evacuation of the inpatients can be extremely difficult or rather impossible.

The openable windows can certainly be useful in certain situations.

The provision of the openable windows was not mandatory for the glass façade

Fire Safety the space. We may consider the compartmentation at the ceiling level, by way of creating physical inverted barriers/ coffers. These coffers may be connected to the ventilation ducts having a fire/ smoke damper at the entrance of the duct, to provide effective smoke venting, built into the design. We may certainly use a combined central A/C system for the existing buildings, using the supply ducts to serve as mechanical venting ducts also, thereby reducing the overall cost as well. This can be easily arranged by adding a few pieces of ducts and a few dampers in the AHU room, of old buildings, as illustrated in the figure.

There will however be a need for fresh air replenishment near the floor level at appropriate suitable location.

The picture indicates the modifications carried out in the old AHU system, by addition of ducts & dampers in AHU-room, thereby using the same AHU to function as mechanical ventilation system, in the event of a fire

buildings till recently. This provision of one square meter openable window hinged at the top and at a distance of 10 meters along the periphery has been recommended in the NBC 2016.

The Utility of Such Openings The ventilators provided in the glass façade are manually openable and not designed to open automatically in case of fire.

Moreover, these windows are provided at about 1-meter height and not near the Ceiling level hence, these may not be very useful for the smoke venting purpose.

The wind direction too may affect adversely, during fire conditions and there

has to be someone present inside the building to open these windows, if needed.

Apparently, these openable windows may not serve the required purposes so far as the venting out the smoke is concerned. External access to such windows may not be possible beyond certain heights of buildings, then What is the Solution?

We know that physical compartmentation is not feasible in office/ business buildings, due to the requirement of such building occupants for better utilisation of

The Past Experience of Fires The past experience shows that the fire starting in the Sprinklered buildings, remained confined to the room of Origin only. The problem starts mainly due to carelessness when the sprinkler control valves are closed or there is no water in the system. The fire services invariably must face the smoke, hot gases & poor or nil visibility condition on arrival at the Fire scene. Most of them are not even equipped with PPEs for personal protection or thermal imaging facility for entering smoke-filled premises.

The options, therefore, are to either throw water from outside or somehow try to vent out the heat & smoke in the access corridors/ stairs etc. and then use breathing apparatus sets, make entry to get within the reach of the

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27

Fire Safety room on fire & use minimum water to extinguish the fire. The builtin natural or mechanical venting system with effective segregation/ compartmentalization can make things easy for people using the building as well as for the fire service, responding to the fire call.

•A

The experience we have gone through are - AMRI Hospital fire in 2011 in Kolkata – 93 deaths

•B

Sunrise Hospital, Dream Mall Covid Hospital 2021 in Mumbai 12 deaths out of 78 rescued by fire department

•C

Upahar Cinema Fire -1997 in Delhi - 59 deaths, out of over 125 rescued and

•D

Sidharth Continental Hotel Fire in Delhi- 1986. about 37 people lost their life.

All of them in these Fire incidents died due to inhalation of Smoke & other product of combustion and no-one was burnt by fire. These deaths were understood to be the result of two main factors: 1.

2.

Lack of effective compartmentation/ unsealed openings, which allowed the smoke to spread to other areas in the building. The locked means of escape added to the number of causalities in the Sidharth Hotel fire.

The lack of openable windows or absence of natural or mechanical ventilation in those parts of the building, where people were trapped and could not escape in time. There was a large-sized fixed glass window in the balcony foyer, located at the rear side of the centrally A/C cinema-hall, had no openable windows. The toughened glass could not be

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broken by the trapped public & they got suffocated to death. Fire was in an electrical transformer at the stilt floor, not inside the cinema hall.

These are not the only incidents as there are many more incidents to quote, which lead to the death of many people due to smoke from fires, mostly in centrally air-conditioned buildings Conclusion All glass façade buildings are required to be provided with a centrally airconditioned facility as an operational requirement. We, therefore, need prevent the spread of smoke/ fire through glass façade joints with the floors as well as the possibility of internal spread of smoke & fire, to other than fire affected part of building through central AC system ducts or unsealed service shafts, etc.

Effective smoke management needs effective compartmentalization of means of escape & AC zones, below as well above the false ceiling.

The need for the built-in automatic smoke venting must be given desired importance for the life safety of the occupants, along with good maintenance & function ability of all the systems like fire alarm, communication, sprinkler and other water or gas-based fire suppression systems for the centrally air conditioned & glass façade buildings. External assistance may not be considered dependable at all. The awareness about the fire hazards present in the building, the information about the means of escape, fire suppression facilities and smoke venting, etc., on part of the occupants, can help in easy evacuation & save precious lives in the event of a fire.

RAJESH CHANDER SHARMA

Former Director, Delhi Fire Services

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rajesh Chander Sharma, born in 1950, is a Science Graduate from Punjab University.

He had initial training at NFSC Nagpur, and joined Bokaro Steel Plant Fire Service in 1973. While in service at Bokaro, he passed the Graduateship & membership Exam of IFE UK. He is a Fellow Member of IFE UK, passed Div. Command Course from Fire Service College UK, MBA DM & PG Diploma in Fire & Life Safety from IPU Delhi.

Sharma served with Industrial Fire Services for about 15 years, then joined DFS in 1988 as Deputy CFO, rose to the rank of CFO and Finally retired as its director in 2010. He also served as DIG Fire in CISF on deputation for 3 years. Sharma is a recipient of President Fire Service Medals for meritorious & distinguished services. He has been the Chairman of the CED -36 of BIS for about 10 yrs. He is also a teaching faculty with various universities. He can be contacted at rcsharmadfs@gmail.com.

Fire Safety

Fire Safety and Fenestration Design & Technologies

IMAGE CREDIT - PROFINE INDIA

At the same time, we need to understand that forming by-laws by the government alone can not fulfil the objective of fire safety. These norms should be practised by the builders, architects and construction consultants while designing and constructing the buildings.

Further to this, due to the urbanisation and huge infrastructure developments, buildings are situated so close which has increased the chances of spreading the fire to a larger area. In recent times we have witnessed scary and painful fire accidents that resulted in the loss of lives and property. These tragic accidents have triggered government and industry attention on how to improve existing fire safety measures.

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In India, we have National Building Code for fire and life safety. Part 4 of the code covers the detailed guidelines for construction, maintenance and fire safety of the structures.

This includes requirements for fire prevention and life safety in relation to fire protection of buildings. It specifies occupancy-wise classification, constructional aspects, egress requirements and protection features that are necessary to minimise danger to life and property from fire.

Accidents may occur at any place but preventive measures can be taken to minimise the damage. Fire protection planning is a systematic approach involving construction as per by-law and using fireproof/ retardant construction material. Nowadays, the industry as a whole is showing a great sense of responsibility towards this danger.

Modern buildings are constructed in such a way which can help in delaying the fire from spreading to other areas of the building. Like compartmentalisation of the building, usage of fire doors, fireresistant glazing and usage of windows

IMAGE CREDIT - PROFINE INDIA

T

here is a perception that modern buildings are much safer from the risk of fire than the buildings of the past due to various fire prevention equipment and safety norms being implemented in the construction of buildings. But the reality is different, as today’s buildings have more chance of spreading fire than in the past due to increased usage of material in various building applications that catches and spread fire rapidly like plastic and synthetic substance than the natural material.

We need to understand that there are many components/ articles in the building which are combustible in nature and spread fire rapidly like synthetic furniture/ furnishings, wood etc. In this case, uPVC is neither better nor worse than most.

Fire protection planning is a systematic approach involving construction as per by-law and using fireproof/ retardant construction material

Fire Safety

IMAGE CREDIT - PROFINE INDIA

IMAGE CREDIT - PROFINE INDIA

made of uPVC. Installing good quality uPVC windows and doors is one of the various other ways of delaying the fire spread in buildings.

A project by profine India - Fire protection planning is a systematic approach involving construction as per by-law and using fireproof/ retardant construction material

Fire resistance tests are intended to assess the performance of elements of construction for their load-bearing or fire separating properties usually termed their fire resistance – for their regulated use in buildings. Fire testing of material can be further classified as to how the material reacts to fire and how it resists the fire. Reaction to fire means how a material responds to the development and spread of a fire. Typically, reaction to fire is determined by a single material or product. Whereas the Resistance to fire is the ability of a building element to prevent the passage of heat and flames from one side to another. This means that not only a specific material or product but an entire system or building section has to be tested.

There are various international standards for testing and classification of fire properties of building materials. For uPVC - several tests can be done to evaluate its behaviour under fire like ignitability. flammability, surface spread of flame, etc.

Fire tests have shown that uPVC materials, being naturally flame retardant throughout their product life, will not cause, support or enhance the development of accidental fire. Fire behaviour for Plastics can be tested as per UL - 94, the Standard for Safety of Flammability of Plastic Materials.

Modern buildings are constructed in such a way which can help in delaying the fire from spreading to other areas of the building

The standard determines the material’s tendency to either extinguish or spread the flame once the specimen has been ignited. Another test - BS 746 Part 7 - measures the rate of spread of a flame front across a material surface, but does not consider emission of toxic smoke and gas.

Class 1 is the highest classification, with the slowest rate of spread.

Unlike timber windows, the uPVC sections do not support combustion and are in fact self-extinguishing if the external heat or flame source is removed. uPVC has low inflammability and a low rate of heat release. This quality prevents the promotion of fire spread and therefore it is significantly positive for fire safety.

KOEMMERLING, being one of the leading uPVC windows and doors brand, has tested its profiles and window systems to determine fire behaviour. The special profile compound archives rating V-0 as per UL-94 and fulfils Class 1 fire resistance (i.e. most resistant) as defined in BS 476: Part 7.

Bushfires are natural phenomena and unpredictable in nature. Therefore, the need to protect both human life and building against a bushfire is essential. Kommerling C70 Gold and Premidoor system have been designed and successfully tested according to the requirements of AS 3959: 2009 and AS 1530.8.1: 2007, for use in Australia‘s bushfire prone areas.

Therefore, KOEMMERLING uPVC profiles are an effective means for preventive fire protection.

FARID KHAN

Director & CEO, profine India Window Technology Pvt Ltd ABOUT THE AUTHOR Farid Khan, Director and CEO, profine India Window Technology Pvt. Ltd., has 24 years of experience in diverse industries serving in India and the Middle East. He had been associated for over a decade with leading public sector organisations in promoting MSME products in overseas markets.

He is a guiding force to reckon with in the uPVC windows and doors industry in India. With brand “Koemmerling”, he has been instrumental in establishing the footprints of profine GmbH, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of uPVC profiles by forming the Indian subsidiary and setting up of local state-of-the-art extrusion facility in Vadodara, Gujarat. Under his leadership, profine India with its brands Koemmerling is having further exponential expansion plans. He is focusing on making India the hub for export opportunities due to its strategic geographical location.

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Façade Safety

Need for Inspection and Performance Testing However, installation at the site is labour intensive in spite of the usage of cranes, cradles, etc. Upskilling and industry-specific training are not generally available. The guiding parameter and correct positioning or installation remain labour dependent.

Today, cladding material installation, glazing panels or ACP, Aluminium cladding sheets or clay tile, or any other material is typically contracted to a subcontractor for the installation.

Most of the façade vendors have a maximum of 20% of the workforce for site execution. They are deployed either for supervision or for working as a backup for the eventuality.

T

he façade industry is at a cusp as our cities are growing taller.

Fire safety, performance, and aesthetics of a high-rise building façade is a complex issue. Therefore, stakeholders’ involvement, including specialist façade consultants with the help of relevant codes and standards, ensures performance-based design.

Material manufacturers, suppliers, and vendors also have upped the ante with the technical presentation, technical teams to explain solutions, performance criteria, and test certificates being made available by them to select the best technological solutions and material choices for all stakeholders.

Investment in performance mock-ups before execution additionally helps to check and improvise on the designs.

On the same lines and on a positive note, the industry has embodied and improved manufacturing techniques to ensure quality. Manufacturing happens in a controlled environment, which

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provides the product manufactured goes through stringent quality checks before being dispatched. The quality check parameters coincide with approved system drawings and specifications if the material and contractor chosen are prequalified based on design and technical expertise and not just cost.

With the advent of speed and gamut of execution, supervision at all locations by qualified façade engineers remains a challenge. One of the biggest challenges for highrise buildings today is the facades’ installation process. In most projects, installation of the facades starts before the completion of the main structure, which involves risks of tolerance difference

Façade inspection

Façade Safety and ensures safety for its occupants.

However, current conventional façade inspection is time, labour, and costintensive.

Fire-safety measures in a high-rise building

between floor construction of the facility and the façade, breakages, half-done works, and in some cases, damage to completed works. According to the installation contractors, coordinating the installation works with other trade contractors’ activities remains the most significant hurdle and a challenge.

Performance safety parameters of highrise building façades are a complex problem. Therefore, the prescriptive of just design or manufacturing being correct is not sufficient to ensure a proper building level performance and especially fire safety level.

Façade inspection is an integral part of installation quality as it helps to verify the integrity of the structure

With technological advancement and changing facets of how we execute projects, I truly believe there will be more and more intelligence in the façades to manage and optimise.

A significant share of the added value during execution and on-site audits of the façades will be through artificial intelligence and how the various workflows and sequences are implemented at the site. If done correctly, we will be able to provide the entire solution, which is compliant with the design intent.

Next-generation smart façade inspection drones: The drones with high-resolution visual and thermal cameras can accurately scan the interior and exterior of buildings. These images can be compared with numerous pre-defined photos / stored in a computer program.

Through Artificial Intelligence, the alarms can be generated if the current installation is not as per drawings

or design intent, or the execution quality doesn’t comply with set acceptance criteria. This technological advancement may not substitute the interface of human audit, but it can help to reach all locations where works are in progress.

Developed by TUV SUD and partners and other start-ups outside India may make such inspections easy and drive the vendors to attain the next level of quality audits.

This service caters to building operators and owners of large highrise buildings and helps construction companies to ensure façade quality and monitor the construction progress of their projects. Inspection levels can be based on: • • • •

The drone-based close level inspections will throw up comparing criteria around: •

• •

• •

•

Next-generation smart façade inspection drones

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Type of façade and material used Type of installation checks How tall the building is Performance and tolerance guidelines

•

Material used if integrated with frameworks like SAP, Autodesk software, etc.

Installation checks followed at the site Installation tests were done at site and records around the same with incamera recoding Corroborating installation with the design intent Any avenue of water infiltration, gaps between various materials, cracks, splits into joint sealants, missing pieces like flashing, fasteners, gaskets, etc.

Loose, missing, or cracked structural element to which façade is anchored to Breakages, cracks of interior and exterior

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Façade Safety • • •

Accurate measurements Comparison with schedule Accurate prediction of progress at the site if integrated with BIM Model

Getting AI and ML to work for a façade audit will help as AI algorithms can scan through terabytes of data, looking for inconsistencies or hidden patterns that a human might overlook at first. For example like, T2D2, a computer-vision, machine-learning algorithm, and the engineers at the lab can now identify damage to building faced by auditing and comparing the images and video recordings. Such algorithms can do fire level inspections before a façade engineer can go to the exact location and do a more thorough assessment to find solutions. The beauty of AI and ML is that as we feed more and more images and execute more projects, the library of events can help reinforce the learning and improve the gradual models to enhance the usage. A similar partnership between H3 Dynamics and ELID Technology may, in the future, help robots even to execute repair tasks.

Regulatory audits around façade inspection by a qualified engineer with rigid forms and requiring building owners

to produce certificates will bring in stepped up the quality of work execution and help scale up the acceptance criteria based on performance checks.

Façade inspections are also an integral part of effective facility management.

Such AI-driven inspection can help facility and property managers accurately forecast the expected capital expense and mitigate predictive risk. In more and more countries like Singapore, the US, and the UK, local ordinances have been enacted laws. However, they are city and regional-specific.

However, a program or algorithm can be a part of the solution. Skill training, as mentioned earlier, of the execution team needs to enhance. Coupled with the drone surveys, a complete façade inspection with stringent process control and digitisation of the work process will ensure the quality of execution is correct and is for the intended usage. The writer recommends that under the skill development program, Govt of India may notify colleges or bodies to award a time-based certificate to engineers and architects for façade inspection.

This will help to have a pool of qualified personnel.

Getting AI and ML to work for a façade audit will help find inconsistencies or hidden patterns that a human might overlook at first

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JATIN SHAH

Managing Director, Technical Due Diligence, Colliers India ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jatin Shah is a seasoned real estate professional with over 20 years of experience. He has managed the entire aspect of project lifecycle development in multiple projects executed for investors, occupiers and developers across India.

With domain expertise in design, procurement, cost and overall development, he has collaborated and led teams to provide value-add suggestions and inputs. Clients have benefitted immensely through the suggestions made by Jatin on cost, time and buildability.

As Managing Director (Technical Due Diligence), Jatin is responsible for overall growth and developing long terms and short-term strategies for the business to remain profitable and to ensure a culture of client satisfaction and expanding client base to accelerate success.

Fire Safety

Need for Fire-Safe Designs and Performance Testing

“Using an untested product is like driving a busload of people on a moonless night without headlights. It may be proceeding in the right direction but there is no guarantee that it will reach its destination safely.”

The sad reality in India today is something like this bus. We all realise that we have taken fire safety in buildings very

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lightly. Every aspect of this critical issue has been taken very casually, be it legislation or effective implementation and enforcement of the guidelines and laws. And the result of such lackadaisical attitude resulted in countless people losing their lives which could have been saved had a proper set of rules been put in place and enforced by the regulators without any dilution.

The seriousness of fire safety gains even more importance today with the growth in the number of high-rise modern buildings which are mushrooming across our urban landscape. With thousands of occupants using these buildings at any given point of time, the need to ensure that an effective and efficient fire safety system is put in place to prevent the spread of

Fire Safety smoke and fire through the building in the event of a fire accident is vital.

Every agency involved in the design, construction and supervision of such critical buildings must be aware of the need for a foolproof system which will

are a lot of grey areas which still need to be effectively addressed.

One of the biggest handicaps in India with regards to implementing the recommendations of the NBC 2016 is

in a large number of deaths, and despite a flurry of activity and press releases, no responsibility is pinned on any agency.

The fire department in the state, which is a part of the State Police Departments does not have adequate powers vested in them to bring the violators to face criminal charges.

Let us look at the list of the steps which need to be made compulsory in modern buildings to make them safe for their occupants during a fire.

There is a need to ensure that an effective and efficient fire safety system is put in place to prevent the spread of smoke and fire through the building save the lives of many occupants if ever a fire accident occurs.

Even though the National Building Code 2016 has introduced many provisions in this latest version which are in line with the international practices, there still exists a huge gap between the Indian fire code and the one practised in our neighbouring countries like Singapore and UAE. Although many provisions have been amended and updated in the NBC 2016 with respect to the design aspects of critical buildings like hospitals, hotels, malls, schools, and high-rise commercial buildings, there

the fact that fire safety is a state subject, and each state government must legislate the recommended guidelines.

Therefore, the powers to alter and dilute are available to all our State Governments, leading to weak laws and even weaker enforcement. As of today, many of our states in India do not have any effective fire safety laws in place thus leaving the scope for blatant violation open. If there is a loss of life due to a fire accident in a building with inadequate fire safety measures, it is seldom treated as criminal negligence. Time and again we have seen tragedies unfolding across India where fires in hospitals, schools and offices which have resulted

The entire focus during the design of high rise and critical buildings like hospitals, hotels, malls, etc, where the number of occupants at any given point of time will be large, is to ensure that the smoke and fire occurring due to an accident stays compartmentalised within a given area.

This gives adequate time for the rescue staff to evacuate the public to a safe zone without creating a panic situation. This entails effective use of passive products like penetration seals, perimeter fire barriers, smoke activated dampers, firerated doors and partitions installed on the periphery of every compartment which will work towards blocking the smoke and fire from spreading. Care must be taken to ensure that the passive fire products used have been properly tested and certified by approved bodies because the very purpose of installing such products is lost if they fail to work effectively in the event of an accident.

All the service shafts running through the entire height or length of the buildings which carry the plumbing, sewerage pipes and electrical cable must be effectively sealed on every floor and at every zone using penetration seals and fire rated boards, to prevent the smoke and fire from spreading from one zone to another.

Adequate refuge areas must be created as per the recommendations of the NBC 2016 and all the doors and partitions facing the corridors WFM | MAY - JUNE 2022

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Fire Safety

P JOTHI RAMALINGAM

Director, Winwall Technology India Pvt. Ltd.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The design of high rise and critical buildings should ensure that the smoke and fire occurring due to an accident stay compartmentalised within a given area leading to the refuge areas must be tested products for 120 minutes of fire resistance.

All the active fire systems like sprinklers, fire alarms, fire curtains and extinguishers must be from pretested and pre-certified suppliers. A clear maintenance plan must be put in place to check that these active fire systems are in working efficiently on a regular basis by the enforcing authorities.

Although the probability of a fire is very small, these passive and active fire products will save many lives in the event of a fire.

In all the above-mentioned steps, the role of using a tested and certified product becomes vital. The role of the BIS to verify the actual performance of

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these fire-rated products by regularly testing random samples of each manufacturer also gains importance given its criticality.

Fire drills must be regularly conducted to keep all the staff updated on the procedures to be followed in the event of an unfortunate fire accident.

In summary, all of us who are a part of the Indian construction industry must take it upon ourselves to treat fire safety in buildings much more seriously and take steps to install the tested and certified passive and active fire products without compromising on the specifications. Who knows this very decision may save our own or the lives of our dear ones from a fire which could happen in the future?

P. Jothi Ramalingam is a management graduate who is associated with the architectural aluminium industry for the last 27 years. Since 1990 he has specialised in setting up and running an aluminium anodizing plant and a fully conveyorised powder coating plant to surface finish aluminium extrusions to International Standards.

In 2012 he entered into a joint venture with Winwall Technology Pte Ltd, Singapore to set up a performance testing laboratory in Chennai to cater to the ever-growing demand of the façade and fenestration industry.

Winwall technology India pvt Ltd is a part of the Winwall Singapore group with operations in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and India. The company is based in Chennai in India and in its 10 years of existence, it has conducted performance tests for over 300 projects across India and Sri Lanka in its laboratory and 100 on-site tests for projects in India.

Fire Safety

Fire-Safe Aluminium Cladding and Fenestration

T

he correct fenestration designs can solve a multitude of challenges.

As the face of the building design and construction industry is changing rapidly, safety and security measures have become non-negotiable in the building design and construction industry. As a result, there is an increasing need to ensure the various safety measures to make projects viable.

The safety parameters for buildings comprise fire safety measures, structural safety, withstanding harsh weather conditions, safety for accident-prone zones, etc. While many of these measures can be a post-construction add-on, a few should be considered right at the conceptual stage.

Fire safety is one such factor which is segregated into three broad categories that one should look at: • Efficient building design to incorporate passive measures • Provision of systems and equipment for active safety measures • Safe and secure evacuation process for occupants

Using façade and fenestration systems to mitigate fire-related hazards

Fenestration and its Role in Fire Safety Measures Systems such as fire alarms, sprinklers, and fire extinguishers are incorporated

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Designing the layout in accordance with fire safety measures

at the construction stage and sometimes after completion. However, architects should integrate specific measures while designing the structure to ensure enough evacuation space for occupants. It also includes making spatial arrangements for housing the fire-fighting systems, strategically using fire-resistant materials, etc. When it comes to fenestration, with technological advancements, it is possible to provide fire-safe solutions that contribute to the safety of the building.

Fenestration, as we know, takes up a significant portion of the building façade. While it dictates the quality of light and ventilation within the building, it can also significantly impact its safety.

Besides catering to the appropriateness of material, function, building typology, architectural language and style, providing fire safety is of utmost importance. Fenestration and cladding help with external insulation, which can be a crucial fire deterrent. In order to achieve an efficient building envelope,

it is advisable to opt for fire-resistant cladding materials and check them for their safety.

Fire-Safe Aluminium Cladding Options Available Today Aluminium Composite Panel or ACP was previously a popular choice amongst architects and builders because of the numerous advantages aluminium offers. However, the panel has a core of polyethene which is highly combustible in nature, which is a serious disadvantage of ACP. It is a known cause of fire incidents witnessed by the construction industry.

An alternative to ACP is Aluminium Composite Materials or ACM, which are fitted with a non-combustible core sandwiched between two aluminium panels, making the cladding fire safe.

As a result, it has a lower environmental impact and is versatile and cost-effective.

FR ACP or Fire Retardant ACP is also a byproduct of the fire safety measures taken for aluminium-based cladding materials.

Fire Safety

Using high performance and energy-efficient glass

Similar to ACM, they involve a fireresistant core between two aluminium panels.

Role of Glass and Fenestration in Fire Safety Glass is widely used as an insulating material in fenestrations.

Glass technology has undergone tremendous research, resulting in various alternatives for increased fire resistance.

High-performance glass also contributes to a lower heat gain within the building by deflecting a large portion of the solar radiation. It is a viable option for achieving energy efficiency while prioritising a lower environmental impact. Parametric design has enabled the proper selection and arrangement of efficient fenestration systems that can play an integral role in mitigating fire hazards.

Ensuring evacuation pathways and other safety measures

residents of the building. Fenestration systems should allow for easy access to fire-fighting systems during evacuation and should also prioritise speedy evacuation of the occupants. Systems installed near refuge areas and higher storeys should be carefully designed to meet these needs.

Apart from generic tests and audits, any other recommended tests should also be carried out to guarantee the safety of occupants. Additionally, one must obtain the necessary certifications to affirm quality control for extraordinary materials or systems that need to be installed for the project.

Testing and Certification for Fire Safety: Testing for fire safety ensures that the materials, systems and processes under consideration fulfil the minimum requirements of the applicable building code or local authority.

It is critical to carry out fire safety tests to examine specific hazards or issues concerned with the project. For example, in factories or storage facilities that house flammable materials, there are additional tests and certifications that one must obtain to ensure that the building is firesafe.

All buildings in India, for instance, must adhere to the norms of the National Building Code.

Before commencing construction, it is important to check if the selected

How can Fenestration Help in Fire Safety?

Apart from the materials used, the functioning of fenestration systems has a huge impact on the fire safety of a building. For example, openable shutters or vents in places where smoke is likely to occur are a much safer choice than fixed casement panels. This ensures that the smoke has a pathway for release and thus isn’t hazardous for the occupants.

Another critical role that fenestration can play is to aid the evacuation of the

Using appropriate materials and systems

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43

Fire Safety

Choosing fire safe exterior cladding and fenestration

materials are approved for fire safety for their purpose. Builders should prioritise the use of prescribed materials that comply with fire safety norms and offer high performance.

A few examples of fire testing for products and systems are: • ASTM E84 Standard Test Method for the surface burning characteristics of building materials, also known as the Steiner Tunnel Test • DIN 4102 Part 1 fire behaviour of building materials and building components – Part 1: Building materials; concepts, requirements and tests.

• Test Houses performing the said tests are Exova Warrington U.K, PSB Singapore, and Thomas Bell Wright Associates Dubai, to name a few.

In addition to testing prior to construction, it is also advisable to carry out timely fire safety audits to ensure the workability of the installed systems.

Designing Aluminium Façades that Ensure Fire Safety Working closely with fenestration experts and consultants on projects

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can ensure that one can implement fire safety measures properly. Fire safety is an integral consideration right from the conception of the fenestration system design and cladding – rather than an afterthought.

Insulation is an important factor to consider when designing aluminium façades. Whether it’s for composite cladding or fenestration systems, insulation can largely affect the quality of a building. Other than that, one must ensure that the quality standards are met while also considering that an economical approach is ideal in façade design for fire protection. The installation of these systems should not present any fire hazards. These façades should also look at curbing the spread of fire by acting as a barrier.

Façade and fenestration play an important role in the fire safety of a building and significantly contribute to the occupants’ wellbeing. Looking at aluminium-cladding and fenestration systems holistically can enable designers to enhance the safety measures for the project right from the planning stage.

NITIN MEHTA

Co-Founder and Executive Director, ALCOI ABOUT THE AUTHOR Nitin Mehta is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of ALCOI, one of India’s leading suppliers of eco-friendly high–performance fenestration solutions. With his futuristic outlook and innovative leadership, Nitin has led the growth of ALCOI into an industry leader in the realm of premium fenestrations. Under his leadership, ALCOI has transformed into a one-stop solutions provider for the design, manufacturing, installation and servicing of precision-engineered fenestration systems in India and abroad.

An engineer by education from Punjab Technical University, Nitin integrates cutting-edge technology with his experience in the metal industry, leading the design and development of high-performance products in-line with market requirements. ALCOI is a leader in the AEC industry, with a unique product portfolio that blends aesthetics with material innovation and sustainability

shankesh.rathore@gmail.com

Fire Safety

Façades and Fenestration Fire Mitigation Measures

Introduction The concept of façade for buildings was introduced in India in 1990. Before that, high-rise structures were erected in conventional brick and mortar for external wall masonry. Mumbai is the first megacity which was exposed to the highrise culture in the country due to land constraints. Local building bye-laws play an important role in the construction of building in India, however, the majority of these bye-laws have been influenced by the National Building Codes (NBC) which is the backbone of most of the building bye-laws. Before 2106, the NBC was silent about the façade construction beside the fire safety of the façade of buildings.

The use of glass façades in buildings has started gaining momentum due

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The use of glass façades in buildings started gaining momentum a decade back

Fire Safety to its transparency and relative ease in installation and maintenance besides the aesthetic value added to the building. The modern construction practices started giving more emphasis on “Green Buildings” and then there was a constant pressure to construct green or sustainable buildings that have benefits environmentally through promoting not only the low-cost of construction but also reducing the recurring expenditure by using the latest techniques of recycling, energyefficiency, and efficient use of resources.

A well-designed building should meet all design objectives such as usability, aesthetics, the potential for a redesign for alternative uses, and fire safety.

The purpose of writing this article is to discuss the mitigation measures of façade fires.

Fire safety of building design focused on prevention of ignitions, smoke management, detection and warning of occupants, providing for safe egress, control and preventing rapid spread

of fire. Therefore, it is essential that the façades of the building should also meet the expectation of a fire-safe building design. It’s very important that the material used for the façade system should comply with the minimum fire resistance requirement for an exterior envelope. Façade design needs to be done in a manner that it doesn’t allow fire and smoke to penetrate from one compartment to another. A façade system should not fail when a fire occurs from its integrity, stability and insulation.

Based on the past experience, there has been a substantial improvement in façade design to ensure exceptional structure performance in terms of energy efficacy and requirements on aesthetic appeal. These changes primarily alter the behaviour of modern façades in fire and pose a threat to structure safety and financial loss in the event of a fire.

Structures with non-compliant façades pose a threat to occupant

safety and may cause considerable economic loss in the event of a fire.

The Grenfell Tower fire being the latest significant incident, which occurred on the 14th of June, 2017 and resulted in at least 80 fatalities, has established how vulnerable existing façades may be to fires and how this vulnerability directly affects the safety of occupants which unfolds into catastrophic events.

1. Study Conducted in India A study was carried out to understand the mechanisms of fire spread in façade systems, external and internal spread of fire and smoke propagation, glass-break and fire stop material behaviour in a real fire scenario, the smoke and obscuration levels, the fire spread behaviour, fire behaviour with ACP/MDF being used with glass, utility of existing smoke alarms, the behaviour of masonry wall, the impact of fire spread on structural components (beams, columns), the performance of locally available fireproofing material (cement boards), and ambient conditions in adjacent compartments during a fire.

The goal of the study was to emphasise the urgent need for developing performance-based codes and to align norms governing fire safety with countryspecific standards.

A study was carried out to understand the mechanisms of fire spread in façade systems

Experimental investigation of fire behaviour carried out by IIT Gandhinagar and Underwriters Laboratories on glass façade systems reveals that a gap is always provided between the curtain wall and the building to avoid crashing of glass in case of unwanted vibrations arising from passing of heavy vehicles and/or minor earthquakes and also to mitigate effects of thermal expansion. This gap is filled with appropriate fire stop material (e.g., Rockwool). The performance of the façade as well as the fire stop material is crucial for the overall performance of the façade system.

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Fire Safety 2. Major Façade Fires In all building façade fire cases, it is noticed that the material used in the exterior surface cladding was highly combustive and supported rapid-fire propagation. In a few of the structures where sprinklers were installed, still, external fire spread could not be averted. A few ill-famed façade fire examples are: -

48

S.NO

DETAILS

1

Fire at Kalina Building, Santacruz (Mumbai), Diamond Square- April 8th, 2011- A major fire broke out in a six-storey commercial building in the afternoon.

The fire was initiated by the left-wing and completely ruined the left façade of the building.

2

First Information Financial Centre (FIFC) Mumbai, Sep 8th, 2012- A major fire broke out on the 12th floor of the FIFC Building at BKC on Friday. The fire raised for over two hours. The fire travelled from the 12ththe to the 13th floor from the exterior of the buildings.

3

Lotus Business Park, Mumbai- According to officials, the blaze started on the 21st floor of the building around 11:30 am and soon spread to the 20th floor.

4

Grenfell Tower, 14th of June, 2017- The installation of a new façade system on the Grenfell Tower was completed in 2016. A novel chance exists to learn from the Grenfell Tower fire to avoid similar occurrences around the world.

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PICTURES

Fire Safety 3.

Mechanism of Fire Spread in Façade Conduction - Fire can spread via heat transfer of materials, such as metals, which can absorb and transfer heat and are called thermal conductors which are primarily used as a frame in the façade structures.

Convection - Ceilings trap hot air of burning materials and prevent it from moving any higher, which then causes everything to build up heat and can cause a fire to spread. If there is adequate heat, fuel and oxygen accumulation in the area other combustible materials will start igniting and fire away from the original one will start. Once this happens, the fire will quickly engulf a whole room in seconds. This phenomenon is also observed in façade fires.

Radiation - A high-intensity fire will give off more heat. Heat can be transferred through electromagnetic waves just like Sun. There is every possibility for the fire to spread through this mechanism to the building structures nearby.

The Chimney Effect - is where heated surfaces create thermal zones that include upward air movement, which in turn sucks hot gases and flames in its direction. This effect is attributed to the spread of fire upward through shafts, and also the spread of fire upward through available openings between the floor slab edge and therefore in the curtain wall. Subsequently, a need has been felt to fill the penetration through fire stop materials.

Leapfrog effect - This effect is clear in high-rise building fires where flames blaring out through perimeter façades ultimately spread back in through the façade above and still spread vertically to upper floors. Once the heat release rate of the fire is high enough, between 50-100 kW/m2, the window of the room above the room of origin will fall out.

Flames eject from a window, breaking

Leap From Effect

the window above causing ignition on the floor above (leap-frogging), secondary interior fires and level to level fire spread. Heat causing degradation/ separation of non-combustible protective skin resulting in flame spread to combustible elements internal to the wall system. Hence, the façade design must prevent the leapfrog effect.

4. Mumbai Fire Brigade Initiatives After a few fire accidents in Mumbai and India, Mumbai Fire Brigade in September 2016 has initiated the proposal to incorporate fire safety provisions for the façade buildings which is accepted and approved by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai and incorporated into the fire safety measures with the orders that the occupiers/owners of such buildings shall comply all these fire safety requirements within 120 days of the publishing of the appeal and submit compliance.

1. The smoke seal/barriers between the building wall and the façade shall be provided at every floor level in the form of non-combustible material/ vermiculate cement.

2. Glass façade blocking the area of a staircase, lift lobby and corridor shall be kept openable. If the staircase/lift lobby is pressurised the pressurisation system shall be synchronised with the glass façade window opening mechanism.

3.

4.

Minimum of 2.5% of the floor area of each compartment on each floor shall be kept openable.

Refuge area shall be kept open above the height of 1.20 meters from the flooring level. However, if already covered with a glass façade all the glass panels shall be openable (either left or right hinge) both from inside as well as outside.

5.

Comparison of Building Code Requirements for Fire Resistive Design of Façades 5.1) Changes in NBC Based on the fire safety adopted by the Mumbai Fire Brigade and the NBC has adopted the following in 2016: 1.

2.

The glazing shall be by Part 6.

Structural Design, Section 8 Glass and Glazing. The entire glazing assembly shall be rated to that type of construction “Fire Resistance Ratings of Structural and NonStructural Elements” of NBC. This shall be applicable along with other provisions of this Part related to respective uses as specified therein. The use of glass shall not be permitted for enclosures of exits and exit passageways.

Glass façade shall be in accordance with the following: WFM | MAY - JUNE 2022

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Fire Safety

ASTM Test Assembly Picture

•

•

•

For fully sprinklered buildings having fire separation of 9 m or more, tempered glass in a non-combustible assembly, with the ability to hold the glass in place, shall be provided. It shall be ensured that sprinklers are located within 600 mm of the glass façade providing full coverage to the glass.

All gaps between floor slabs and façade assembly shall be sealed at all levels by approved fire-resistant sealant material of equal fire rating as that of the floor slab to prevent fire and smoke propagation from one floor to another.

Openable panels shall be provided on each floor and shall be spaced not more than 10 m apart measured along the external wall from centreto-centre of the access openings.

Such openings shall be operable at a height between 1.2 m and 1.5 m from the floor, and shall be in the form of openable panels (fire access panels) of size not less than 1 000 mm × 1 000 mm opening outwards.

The wordings, “FIRE OPENABLE PANEL, OPEN IN CASE OF FIRE, DO NOT OBSTRUCT” of at least 25 mm letter height shall be marked on the internal side. Such panels shall be suitably distributed on each floor

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based on occupant concentration.

These shall not be limited to cubicle areas and shall be also located in common areas/corridors to facilitate the access by the building occupants and fire personnel for smoke exhaust in times of distress.

3.

•

Surface Interior Finishes: The use of combustible surface finishes on walls (including the façade of the building) and ceilings affects the safety of the occupants of a building. Such finishes tend to spread the fire and even though the structural elements may be adequately fire-resistant, danger to life may result. It is, therefore, essential to have adequate precautions to minimise the spread of flame on walls, façades of buildings and ceiling CLASS 1

May be used in any situation

•

1.

2.

3.

4.

•

surfaces. The finishing materials used for various surfaces and decor shall be such that they shall not generate toxic smoke/fumes.

The susceptibility of various types of wall surfaces to fire is determined in terms of the rate of spread of flame.

Based on the rate of spread of flame, surfacing material shall be considered as divided into four classes as followsClass 1 Surfaces of very low flame spread.

Class 2 Surfaces of low flame spread.

Class 3 Surfaces of medium flame spread.

Class 4 Surfaces of rapid flame spread.

The uses for which surface materials falling into various classes shall be adopted in building construction are given below:

CLASS 2

CLASS 3

May be used in any situation, except on walls, façade of the building, staircase and corridors

May be used only in living rooms and bedrooms (but not in rooms on the roof ) and only as a lining to solid walls and partitions; not on staircases or corridors or façade of the building.

NOTE: Panelling (lining) shall be permitted in a limited area. It shall not be permitted in a vestibule.

Fire Safety •

•

Materials of Class 4 which include untreated wood fibreboards may be used with due fire-retardant treatment as ceiling lining, provided the ceiling is at least, 2.4 m from the top surface of the floor below, and the wall surfaces conform to the requirements of class 4 materials shall not be used in kitchens, corridors and staircases.

Some materials contain bitumen and, in addition to the risk of spread of fire, emit dense smoke on burning; such materials shall be excluded from use under these conditions and shall also not be used for the construction of ceilings where the plenum is used for return air in air-conditioned buildings.

When frames, walls, partitions or floors are lined with combustible materials, the surfaces on both sides of the materials shall conform to the appropriate class because there is considerable danger from fire starting and rapidly spreading within the concealed cavity unknown to the occupants whose escape may be hampered thereby. For detailed information on materials and details of construction with their fire-resistance rating, reference may be made to good practice.

4. Part- 6 Section 8.2.1 of NBC i) Performance Criteriaw The performance criteria to be satisfied by the glazing system are structural stability and safety, energy efficiency (performance), visual comfort (light transmittance and reflection), fire protection (ability to resist/ withstand fire), sound insulation, air infiltration (wind pressure, stack pressure, fan pressure), and water penetration (static, dynamic and cyclic pressures). ii) Movements The glazing system (and its framing elements) shall be able to accommodate the movements caused due to wind loads, seismic loads, live loads, dead load deflection, thermal expansion and contraction of members, slab deflection, etc.

iii) Types of Structural Frame Materials For the framed/semi-framed systems, materials such as aluminium, stainless steel, uPVC and timber, which are commonly employed are listed hereunder.

• Aluminium Alloy- is commonly used for higher strength.

• Stainless Steel- is employed for its mechanical properties as they are highly corrosion resistant for all normal exposures.

• uPVC- A relatively flexible material, PVC which is internally reinforced with steel or aluminium to give it the required strength and stiffness may also be used.

• Timber- Timber frames are relatively stiff and are adopted for their inherent thermal insulation property, lightweight and improved sound insulation.

5.2) National Construction Code Australia Standards Australia has developed an additional Australian Standard (AS 51132016 (Standards Australia 2016) on “Fire propagation testing and classification of external walls of buildings”, that offers procedures for the fire propagation testing and classification of external walls of buildings conferring on their tendency to limit the spread of fire via the external wall and between adjacent buildings. This standard has been developed based on international practice and is consistent with the testing criteria prescribed in ISO 13785 (International Organisation for Standardisation 2002) and BS 8414 (British Standard Institute 2015) Parts 1 and 2. National Construction Code (NCC) Australia expects a certain performance requirement from the external cladding of a building (The Australian Building Codes Board 2016). There are two paths to meet the specified performance criteria; deemed-to-satisfy solution and performance solution. Where a deemed-to-satisfy solution is proposed, performance requirements which are categorised in the order from CP1 to CP9

should be satisfied depending on the type of construction. Where a performance solution is proposed, it requires a report from a qualified fire engineer. The report should be based on full-scale façade tests carried out in accordance with BS 8414 (British Standard Institute 2015), ISO 13785 (International Organisation for Standardisation 2002), and NFPA 285 (National fire protection association 2012), or any equivalent international standard.

Standards Australia has released AS 5113, a full-scale façade test based on BS 8414 and ISO 13785.

When cladding is part of the external wall, it should be non-combustible for buildings which have more than 3 storeys (The Australian Building Codes Board 2016).

The combustibility of the material should be determined by testing in accordance with AS 1530. For laminated products, the test should be carried out with individual layers and a stack of laminates similar to the end-use condition. NCC prescribes the non-combustible requirements for bonded laminated elements as follows (Australian Building Codes Board 2016; The Australian Building Codes Board 2016): • Each laminate is non-combustible in accordance with AS 1530 • Each adhesive layer does not exceed 1 mm in thickness; and • The total thickness of the adhesive layers does not exceed 2 mm; and • The Spread-of-Flame Index and the Smoke-Developed Index of the laminated material as a whole do not exceed 0 and 3 respectively in accordance with AS 1530.

However, if one or more laminates are combustible, it violates noncombustibility requirements and therefore cannot be used as part of a deemed-to-satisfy solution where a noncombustible material is required in façade (Australian Building Codes Board 2016).

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Fire Safety insulation and internal lining (e.g., plasterboard) are often considered as part of an external wall. The external wall can be load-bearing or non-load bearing. Depending on the load-bearing condition and the distance from the fire source, NCC also specifies fire resistance level (FRL) in minutes for buildings of more than 3 levels for the three main performance criteria; structural adequacy, integrity and insulation (The Australian Building Codes Board 2016) (see Table).

Class of building – FRL: (in minutes) Structural adequacy/Integrity/Insulation

Building element

2,3 or 4 parts

5,7a or 9

6

7b or 8

External wall (including any column and other building element incorporated therein) or other external buil ding element, where the distance from any fire-source feature to which it is exposed is— For load-bearing partsLess than 1.5m

90/ 90/ 90

120/120/120

180/180/180

180/180/180

1.5m to less than 3m

90/ 60/ 60

120/120/90

180/180/120

180/180/120

3m or more

90/ 60/ 30

120/60/30

180/120/190

180/120/190

Less than 1.5m

-/ 90/ 90

-/120/120

-/180/180

-/240/240

1.5m to less than 3m

-/ 60/ 60

-/ 90/ 90

-/180/120

-/240/180

3m or more

-/-/-

-/-/-

-/-/-

-/-/-

For non-loadbearing parts-

Table- Type A Construction: FRL of building elements

When cladding is considered to be an attachment to the external wall, combustible material can be used, given that it satisfies certain conditions of not impairing with the external wall fire resistance. The material should meet the fire hazard properties. The combustible cladding should not be located near or directly above an exit and it should not constitute an undue risk of fire spread via the façade of the building. The attachment should also meet the required FRL for that construction type (refer to Table above).

However, NCC also specifies exceptions for combustible materials or containing combustible components such as fibres.

These exclusions can be plasterboard, perforated gypsum lath with a normal paper finish, fibrous-plaster sheet, fibre-reinforced cement sheeting and pre-finished metal sheeting having a combustible surface finish not exceeding 1 mm thickness and where the Spread-of-

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Flame Index of the product is not greater than 0.

following set of conditions applies for the installation of façades.

5.3) Approved Document B - UK Approved Document B (ADB) (Department of Communities and Local Government 2010) is used as the guideline under building regulations to determine fire safety. While ADB specifies certain conditions to be satisfied for the cladding to be fire-resistive, it also gives provision to alternate means of compliance by testing according to British Standard 8414 and assessment in accordance with Centre for Window and Cladding Technology BR 135 (2017). Fire-resistance of the wall should be dealt with EN 1364-4 (European Committee for Standardisation 2014).

As this article is more focused on the façade fire, the guidelines that apply primarily to façades will be discussed in detail.

•

If the building contains a floor more than 18m above ground level, the

Any insulation product, filler material (not including gaskets, sealants and similar) etc. used in the external wall construction should be of limited combustibility and meet the requirement of Euro class A2 materials; • External surface above 18m should be Class B; • External surface below 18m can be Class C provided distance from boundary exceeds 1m.

Combustibility of materials is classified in accordance with EN 13501-1 (European Committee for Standardisation 2009) as A1, A2, B, C, D, E and F with A1 being the highest performance and F being the lowest.

Table- Combustibility class of materials used in ADB (Centre for Window and Cladding Technology 2017; Department of Communities and Local Government 2010).

Fire Safety CLASS 1

DEFINITION

A1

Non – combustible. (As defined in ADB Table A6)

A2

Limited combustibility. (As defined in ADB Table A7)

B

FIGRA ≤ 120 W/s and LFS < edge of specimen and THR600s ≤ 7, 5 MJ

C

FIGRA ≤ 250 W/s and LFS < edge of specimen and THR600s ≤ 15 MJ FIGRA - fire growth rate index, LFS - lateral flame spread (m), THR600s - total heat release within 600 s

According to guidelines (Centre for Window and Cladding Technology 2017; Department of Communities and Local Government 2010), if the building does not contain a floor more than 18m above ground and the façade is within 1mtr of the boundary, the external surface should be of Class B. When the façade is more than 1mtr away from the boundary for buildings more than one storey and shorter than 18m, Class C material can be used for the external surface. In any of the above cases, if the façade contains cavities, cavity barriers should be provided in accordance with the Centre for Window and Cladding Technology.

5.4) International Building Code - US International Building Code (IBC) was adopted by the United States as the document to form building regulations. Façades should comply with the material fire resistance rating specified by the code depending on the construction type or the assembly of façade should pass the test titled NFPA 285– Standard fire test method for evaluation of fire propagation characteristics of exterior non-loadbearing wall assemblies containing combustible components.

Following construction, types are defined in IBC depending on the combustibility of the material used in building components. Fire-resistance rating requirement varies for different construction types as shown in Table.

•

•

•

•

Type V - Structural elements, exterior walls and interior walls are of any materials permitted by this code Building such as assembly (A), business (B), educational (E), factory and industrial (F & I), mercantile (M), storage (S), High-hazard (H) and so on depending on the fire separation distance and occupancy level, following fire-resisting rating is specified for non-load bearing cladding on different construction types mentioned earlier. When fire separation distance is more than 30 feet (9.2m) there is no requirement on the façade’s fire rating.

Type I and II – Building elements listed in Table 601 (Primary structural frame; exterior and interior bearing walls, non-bearing walls and partitions; floor and roof ) are of non-combustible material, except as permitted in section 603 and elsewhere in code Type III – Exterior walls are of non-combustible material and the interior are of any material permitted by the code Type IV (Heavy Timber, HT ) – Exterior walls are of noncombustible material and the interior building elements are of solid or laminated wood without concealed spaces

FIRE-RESISTANCE RATING (FRR) FIRE SEPARATION DISTANCE = X (FEET)

TYPE OF CONSTRUCTION

OCCUPANCY GROUP H

OCCUPANCY GROUP F-1, M, S-1

OCCUPANCY GROUP A, B, E, F-2, I, R, S-2, U

X<5

All

3

2

1

5 ≤ X < 10

1A Others

3 2

2 1

1 1

10 ≤ X < 30

I A, I B II B, V B Others

2 1 1

2 0 1

2 0 1

X ≥ 30

All

0

0

0

Table- Fire-resistance rating requirement for exterior walls based on fire separation distance (International Code Council 2012)

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Fire Safety IBC also relaxes these limits for fire retarded treated wood if used in construction of exterior walls.

The tests are also required to establish the vertical and lateral flame propagation for exterior walls that contain combustible water-resistive barriers in structures of type I, II, III or IV construction that are taller than 12 meters.

Fire safety requirements used materials in façades such as metal composite materials (MCM), exterior insulation and finish systems (EIFS), highpressure decorative exterior grade compact laminates (HPL), foam plastic insulation and fibrereinforced polymer are specified in detail. The requirement for MCM is a flame spread index not more than 25 and a smokedeveloped index not more than 250 is specified when tested in accordance with ASTM 84. For HPL those indexes are 75 and 450.

The fire spread characteristics of foam plastic insulation is determined after doing the test in accordance with NFPA 285.

Conclusion The use of glass façades will further increase in near future as more and more emphasis has been given to the green buildings. However, excessive use of unrated glass façades cannot be allowed due to the inherent fire risk associated with the systems. It is, therefore, necessary to observe the following mitigation measures to prevent façade fires in future: 1. Use of fire-rated glass and associated accessories in the buildings.

2. Design of the façade should not encourage the leapfrog effect.

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3.

Setback area given in the building bye-laws should be strictly adhered to avoid the mechanism of spreading of fire to the adjoining structures.

4.

The glass break behaviour should not affect the dwellers and rescuers.

5.

Sealing of penetrations with suitable fire stop material to prevent smoke and fire movement which cause flashovers/backdraft.

6.

Use of curtain-type sprinkler in the vicinity of the glass which will act as a barrier and will keep the glass away from the source of fire

7.

Spandrel area depth and insulation are important.

8.

Testing of Lamination used in the glass façade as per AS 1530.

References• Electronic Journal of Structural Engineering 16(1) 2016- Performance of modern building façades in fire: a comprehensive review.

• Mechanism of fire spread on façades and the new Technical Report of EOTA “Large-scale fire performance testing of external wall cladding systems”- Ingolf Kotthoff and Jan Riemesch-Speer.

• Façade systems and fireGaurav Srivastava Associate Professor Civil Engineering, IIT Gandhinagar.

• Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai- Mumbai Fire Brigade, Ref-MGC/F/779.

Sub- Fire Safety Requirements for existing Glass Façade Buildings • National Building Code of India 2016

PIYUSH SHAMI

Fire Protection Engineer, B.E Fire Technology and Safety Engineering ABOUT THE AUTHOR Piyush a graduate fire engineer has also a post-graduate diploma holder in Fire and Life Safety Audit. He has been working as a Fire Protection Engineer and Consultant for the last 7 years.

He has worked with different sectors like pharmacy, hospitals, manufacturing plants, etc.

Piyush has his expertise in fire system design and implementation, fire safety audit, training, and computational fluid dynamics for fire and smoke propagation. He is a member of the Fire and Security Association of India, a member and charter engineer from Intuition of Engineers Ltd. (India), and a fire consultant to Bhopal Municipal Corporation.

Fire Safety

Importance of Perimeter Fire Barriers in Curtain Wall Construction

O

ne of the dominant features in modern buildings is the ‘curtain wall’, which is a complex amalgamation of components that include spandrel and safing insulation, spandrel glass, vision glass, aluminium frames (transoms & mullions), back pan, anchors, etc. Alongside the external elegant factor, these curtain walls also play a critical role in the energy efficiency and sustainability of the building. But from a safety point, such structures enveloped by a curtain wall system pose an additional challenge to the fire safety of the building.

regulatory system and the adoption of various national or international test standards can have a critical impact on the performance of a façade, in case of a fire incident. Avoiding or compromising the edge of the slab opening with no systems or a non-tested system can potentially lead to a catastrophic inferno. Perimeter Fire Barriers (PFBs) are one of the critical systems required by the various national and international building codes and it’s an effective way of restricting the movement of fire and smoke.

For the design and construction of curtain wall systems, the building

Typically, the path for the fire to spread to adjacent floor levels at the building

The path for the fire to spread to adjacent floor levels at the building perimeter

perimeter is through the ‘chimney effect’ wherein the fire, smoke and hot gases propagates through the void space created between the edge of the floor and an exterior curtain wall and it can be mitigated through appropriate design, installation, inspection, documentation and maintenance of perimeter fire barrier systems.

It is important to recognise that the width of the horizontal gap between the edge of the slab and the curtain wall can vary drastically, especially considering construction tolerances in concrete buildings. This is when the building codes and the relevant standards play a vital role by providing guidance on the need and the methodology of protecting the void between the firerated floor and an exterior wall in order to effectively mitigate the risk of fire and smoke propagation from one floor to other.

Codes and Standards For buildings featuring glass façade assembly, NBC 2016, clause 3.4.10.2 b) recommends that all gaps between floor slabs and façade assembly shall be sealed at all levels by approved fireresistant sealant material of equal fire rating as that of the floor slab to prevent fire and smoke propagation from one floor to another. As per UAE fire code clause 3.3.5, Perimeter fire barrier system ratings shall be established in accordance with ASTM E 2307, BS EN 1364-3 (Full configuration test) or BS EN 1364-4 (Part configuration test) or other equivalent tests using the Intermediate-Scale, Multi-Story Test Apparatus (ISMA) as the test method.

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Fire Safety Furthermore, NFPA 101, 2018 clause 8.3.5.4.1 mentions that the Voids created between the fire-resistance–rated floor assembly and the exterior curtain wall shall be protected with a perimeter joint system that is designed and tested in accordance with ASTM E2307, Standard Test Method for Determining Fire Resistance of Perimeter Fire Barriers Using Intermediate-Scale, Multistory Apparatus.

Similarly, IBC 2015, Section 715.4 states that the void created between the slab edge and the curtain wall must be sealed with an approved system tested per ASTM E2307 that remains securely in place for the time period equal to the fire-resistance rating of the floor assembly. In general, any void between the fire-rated floor and an exterior wall must be protected using a perimeter fire containment system that has been tested in accordance with ASTM E 2307 - ‘Standard Test Method for Determining Fire Resistance of Perimeter Fire Barriers Using Intermediate-Scale, Multistory Test Apparatus (ISMA). And for evaluating the air leakage (smoke rating) of perimeter joints, ‘UL 2079 - Tests for Fire Resistance of Building Joint systems’ is referred to.

Tested Systems, Ratings and Engineering Judgements (EJ’s) The basic configuration of the test furnace and test sample in ASTM E 2307 includes a two-story building with the ground floor fully engaged in a post-flashover fire condition. The fire is provided using two burners, one internal burner placed inside the structure and one external burner placed outside the structure, providing a flame plume up along the side of the building. An exterior curtain wall is then installed on one side of the structure. The void between the curtain wall and the edge of the floor slab is then protected with materials that are intended to prevent the passage of flames through the void and based on the testing the ‘F-Rating (Fire Rating)’ and ‘T-Rating (Insulation rating)’ for the assembly is established.

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To be considered a dynamic perimeter joint protection, both expansion/ contraction and shear movements must be cyclic tested. The cyclic movement demonstrates the perimeter joint protection’s ability to move in expansion/contraction responding to environmental forces (wind, thermal, and seismic) and how they move in shear in reacting to live loads while maintaining a seal between the floor assembly and exterior wall assembly and resisting fatigue and degradation.

The cyclic rate, magnitude, and duration of movement can also affect the performance of the perimeter joint protection when subjected to standardised fire exposure and ASTM E2307 provides test conditions for these variables.

When field conditions differ from the original design (Eg.: variation in gap width, arrangement of Spandrel assembly, etc.) or unanticipated construction hindrances are encountered, Engineering Judgments (EJ’s) are typically made that recommend alternative methods to ensure the performance of the firestop system is not compromised. Generally, these conditions or hindrances cannot be effectively redesigned so alternative recommendations are to be provided based upon identical designs as that which were fire tested, it is important that they be developed using sound engineering principles and has to be provided by the trained and qualified personnel based on the recommendations prescribed in IFC guidelines.

Tested System Design In order to choose a right system, it is important to know the basic details of the application such as the makeup of the exterior wall - Spandrel Glass, Aluminum Panel etc., hourly rating, joint width, static or Dynamic joint etc.

The right system selection for a perimeter firestop system can be done by accessing third-party certification

laboratory listing directories. The UL and Intertek listings represent an enormous amount of successful fire containment understanding. The UL & Intertek directory follows a specific nomenclature to identify the different firestop systems listed based on which right system can be chosen to suit the specific needs of the project.

For example, UL certifications for Perimeter joints use a unique numbering system. The systems are identified in this category by an alpha-alphanumeric identification system. The first two alpha characters, CW, identify the perimeter-firecontainment system as being for use at the interface of a fire-rated floor and a non-fire-rated exterior curtain wall. The third alpha character is either S or D. The S signifies perimeter-firecontainment systems that do not have movement capabilities (i.e., Static). The D signifies fire-containment systems that do have movement capabilities (i.e., Dynamic). The numeric component uses sequential numbers to identify the maximum clearance distance between the curtain wall and the perimeter of the floor. The significance of the number used is:

No. Range

Max Clearance Distance Between Curtain Wall & Perimeter of Floor

0000-0999

Less than or equal to 2 in.

1000-1999

Greater than 2 in. and less than or equal to 6 in.

2000-2999

Greater than 6 in. and less than or equal to 12 in.

To choose a system, we need to know the basic details of the application.

•

The makeup of the exterior wall - Concrete panel, Spandrel Glass, Aluminum Panel, etc.

Fire Safety • • • •

•

•

Supports the exterior wall – Steel stud, aluminum mullions etc.

Hourly rating requirement – F rating (1 – 2 hour) Smoke rating requirement – L rating (<.1 SCFM/LF) Joint width – Measured from edge of slab to nearest point of curtain wall Movement requirement – Must accommodate building movement (% of joint size) Special considerations, if any – Unique construction condition, environmental exposure

Upon successful completion of testing of fire barrier system by UL or Intertek Laboratories, the systems are judged eligible to bear UL Mark or ETL mark respectively. Furthermore, the certified systems are subjected to Follow up Service(FUS) as a part of a surveillance program post-certification to verify that the product still meets the original requirements it was certified under.

Throughout the lifetime of a UL Certification, they conduct regular inspections of production facilities and products, with an end goal of total compliance.

Perimeter Fire Barrier Installation Typically, Firestop manufacturers will have their own programs and qualification criteria for installers wherein they educate and train them on the trade-specific installation methodologies. Since perimeter fire barrier systems are ‘Listed’ systems, they must be installed in accordance with their listing and the manufacturer’s installation instructions.

The most critical points that are required to be considered for ensuring the effective functioning of the perimeter Fire barrier system include the following aspects:

Firestop manufacturers will have their own programs and qualification criteria for installers wherein they educate and train them on the trade-specific installation methodologies

•

Is the rating of the perimeter fire barrier system equal to or greater than the floor it is adjacent to?

•

Is the EOS joint system tested and listed by an accredited lab?

•

Is the installation done by the trained and qualified installer?

•

Is EJ made available in case of nonavailability of the tested system exactly matching the actual site condition

•

•

Does the field installation follow the listing w.r.t width of the gap between floor edge and curtain wall, curtain wall spandrel insulation (type, thickness, density, etc.), safing insulation (type, depth, % of compression), etc Are the details of the installed system documented in an appropriate manner to enable the Inspections and maintenance of the Firestop system.

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Fire Safety

The field installation of the perimeter fire barrier system follows the listing w.r.t width of the gap between floor edge and curtain wall

Conclusion It is important to have the ‘Fire Barrier System’ appropriately designed, installed, inspected, documented and maintained for serving its intended use. The system shall bear the design ‘Listing’ and ‘approval’ label and conform to the construction type, joint gap and fire, smoke and movement rating requirements of each separate assembly.

It is the responsibility of the product manufacturer/supplier to provide a formal submittal consisting of system

design listing or test certifications, including illustrations, from an accredited testing laboratory as per referenced standards that are applicable to each system configuration.

Adherence to code requirements ensures safety and peace of mind for the builders, contractors, architects, inspectors and occupants. In addition, it helps the fire fighters to carry out firefighting and rescue operations thereby enable to save lives and protect assets.

It is important to have the ‘Fire Barrier System’ appropriately designed, installed, inspected, documented and maintained for serving its intended use

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ARAVIND CHAKRAVARTHY V

Head- Codes and Approvals for Fire protection division, Hilti (India) Pvt. Ltd. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aravind Chakravarthy V is a Polymer Engineer having 15 years of experience in the field of product safety certification, inspection, testing and training as per UL, ASTM, ISO & IEC standards for materials used in electro-technical equipment and the built environment. In his previous stint with UL India Pvt. Ltd, he was leading the Techno-commercial activities in developing the testing and certification business for wire and cable, performance materials and had conducted several ‘Fire and Life Safety’ Inspections for various types of buildings including hotels, hospitals, malls, commercial complexes and educational institutions in India and the Middle East region. Since 2019, he is working as Head - Codes and Approvals for the Fire protection division in Hilti (India) Pvt. Ltd.

Fire Safety

Vertical Greenery Systems – Fire Safety Implications and Routes to Compliance

E

nergy efficiency is a key area of focus for architects looking for ways to ‘build greener’ without compromising building aesthetics, and it’s no surprise that vertical greenery systems have become a growing trend in increasingly dense urban environments.

Vertical greenery systems, also known as green walls, living walls or vertical gardens, are vertically built structures intentionally covered by vegetation, typically including a growth medium such as soil, substitute substrate, or hydroculture felt. They differ from ‘green façades’ in that they have the growth medium supported on the vertical face of the wall, whereas green façades have the growth medium located at the base.

This allows living walls to contain more plant species than green façades, which are limited to climbing types.

Aside from the aesthetic value that green walls provide for buildings and urban centres, they’ve been shown to have environmental benefits by maximising CO2 absorption and oxygen production without sacrificing valuable ground space. They can function as an effective form of shading in warmer climates, cooling down building interiors by lowering the temperature of the exterior surface, and can extend the lifetime of façades by protecting them from UV radiation. In temperate climates, retrofitted green walls have been shown to reduce heat loss from buildings by over 30%.1 Acoustically, green walls have been shown to absorb more sound than traditional façades, resulting in increased focus and attention of occupants and reductions in stress levels, in addition to wellness promoted through biophilia and improvements in air quality.2

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Figure 1 - Vertical Greenery System - Tree House, Singapore (Source: CDL)

Fire Safety Implications The concern with these systems is that they can present a means for fire spread along the external envelope of the building. As they are an emerging technology, there are few standards available on the fire protection of greenery systems, with guidance

largely limited to green roofs, e.g.

ANSI/SPRI VF1, External Fire Design Standard for Vegetative Roofs, and IBC Section 1507.16, Vegetative Roofs, Roof Gardens and Landscaped Roofs. At the time of writing, it was observed that no standards have been developed within the region for vertical greenery

Fire Safety cannot adequately address emerging technologies, following prescriptive guidance can result in design constraints that are not always appropriate to the specific building being considered.

This is particularly evident with larger, more complex developments, where prescriptive compliance is generally not practical in all aspects of the design.

Figure 2 - Vertical Forest, Milan (Source: WSP NZ)

systems, which are therefore governed by the following statutory guidance documents: • The UAE Fire and Life Safety Code of Practice prescribes that, other than natural stones and concrete, only materials tested and listed with Civil Defence and complying with specific flammability requirements are permitted on the exterior walls of a building.

• The Saudi Building Code (SBC) permits limited-combustible materials on building façades.

However, they are limited to 12 m in height above grade and need to satisfy NFPA 268 ignitability testing.

This is expected to be further restricted in future revisions given recent updates to the International Building Code (IBC), upon which SBC is based.

• Qatar fire codes refer to British Standards BS 476 Parts 6 and 7 (Fire Propagation Test and Surface Spread of Flame Test), requiring a fire propagation index of no more than 4.0, and a flame spread of less than 25 mm after 10 minutes.

Given that plant material is combustible and unable to pass these tests in its organic form, vertical greenery systems are generally not permitted

by prescriptive fire code guidance, and for these systems to be incorporated into a building’s design; an alternative method of achieving compliance is necessary.

Routes to Compliance The intent of building regulations with regards to fire safety is to mitigate risks to a reasonable level, and traditionally such building codes have been prescriptive in nature. However, as prescriptive guidance

For this reason, the aforementioned codes do not prohibit methods or materials not specifically prescribed within the code, i.e. alternative designs are permitted, provided the alternative design complies with the intent of the provisions of the code, and that the design is, for the purpose intended, not less than the equivalent of that prescribed. Where an alternative design is proposed; a performance-based, or fire engineering approach is required to demonstrate that the design is functionally compliant with code requirements, which typically indicates one or more of the following analyses: • Qualitative analysis: a nonnumerical examination of the design using experience, knowledge, and engineering judgement alone.

• Deterministic analysis: a quantitative assessment that calculates fire conditions and other parameters in absolute terms, often with the use

Figure 3 - Vertical System in Sydney (Source: WSP Australia)

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Fire Safety •

•

of computer-based tools such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling software.

Probabilistic analysis: a quantitative approach that assesses the probability of fire events or outcomes.

Typically, qualitative analysis alone will only be sufficient for relatively simple deviations to prescriptive guidance, where the acceptability of an alternative design approach is so

obvious that it can be demonstrated by a non-quantitative argument alone.

For more complex problems, unless the level of risk is already sufficiently low or mitigated by sufficient conservatism, quantitative analysis will be necessary to assess the adequacy of the alternative design.3 Guidance documents such as the International Fire Engineering Guidelines (IFEG), Society of Fire

Protection Engineers (SFPE) guide to performance-based design, and BS 7974 Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings – Code of practice, each provide frameworks on how to develop appropriate performancebased design solutions, the latter of which is illustrated in Figure 4.

For a vertical greenery system to be incorporated in a buildings’ design, it would need to be demonstrated (using one or more of the above analyses) that the risk of ignition of the system is reasonably low, and if ignition were to occur, fire spread along the façade would be restricted such that the occupants of the building can safely evacuate, and firefighters can deploy operations within a reasonable timeframe and safely extinguish the fire.

Design Considerations The primary indicator of risk of ignition in greenery systems is moisture content of the plant material. Research studies of three common plant species used in green wall and roof systems, indicated that each species, when subject to flame impingement from a pilot source, would not ignite provided the moisture content was above a threshold value for that particular species. Where the species was allowed to dry and the moisture content dropped below this threshold, the risk of ignition increased significantly.

The drying times necessary for this to occur were 4, 46, and 38 days for the respective species, however these times could potentially be reduced by summer temperatures within the region.4

Figure 4 - Performance-based Design Framework (Source: BSI PD 7974)

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The research highlights the importance of proper plant species selection, with a preference for those with lower moisture content thresholds for ignition, as well as proper maintenance and irrigation regimes to ensure that the moisture content is kept sufficiently high relative to these thresholds. The irrigation systems would likely need

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Fire Safety to be connected to emergency back-up power supplies, similar to sprinkler and standpipe systems, so that in the event of a power outage the moisture content of the plant material would not drop below the threshold for ignition.

Moisture content was also shown to reduce more rapidly when the vegetation was exposed to higher radiant heat fluxes, meaning the location of greenery systems relative to high fuel load areas within the building should be carefully considered, i.e. a system located on the façade of a retail building would likely be more limited in the number of plant species it could contain when compared to a system on an office building, as retail fires will produce significantly higher radiant heat fluxes than office fires.

Specific studies on fire spread following ignition of vertical systems are scarce, largely due to a limited number of actual fires occurring in these systems, as well as the wide range of plant species that they can contain. This means that each system needs to be assessed deterministically on a case-by-case basis. That would be done using traditional fire engineering analyses related to flame height and impingement, fuel consumption, burn duration and radiant heat flux exposure, in order to evaluate the expected rate of flame spread and inform the geometrical design of the system accordingly. CFD analysis can then be carried out to assess potential wind effects, considering the fuel and moisture content, topography, relative humidity, and ambient air temperature.

Figure 5 - Flashover propensity of common plant species used in VGS [4]

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Following these assessments, the system will either be considered to satisfy the code intent, thereby functionally complying with code requirements, or would constitute a reduction in the standard of safety below that prescribed by the code. In such case, additional mitigation measures would be required including passive and active fire protection systems, additional firefighting facilities, or enhancements to means of egress provisions. For this reason, for vertical systems to be possible without significant redesign of the fire strategy, they need to be proposed at the early design stages before many of the key fire safety components are fixed.

Fire Safety

Figure 6 - Vertical Greenery System, Australia (Source: WSP AU)

As with any alternative approach to prescriptive guidance, early coordination with the authority having jurisdiction is critical to gain in-principle agreement to the design methodology, acceptance criteria, and proposed mitigation measures.

Conclusion As with most emerging technologies, prescriptive fire code guidance is unlikely to provide clear guidance for vertical greenery systems in the shortterm; meaning performance-based design approaches will be the only realistic route to compliance for the foreseeable future. As performancebased designs are bespoke to the building under consideration, no single set of calculation procedures can be applied in all circumstances; requiring each system to be assessed on a caseby-case basis.

Given the complexity of interactions that need to be considered, developing these approaches typically requires a greater degree of care and responsibility by the fire engineer than the application of prescriptive design codes, which brings with it a greater reliance on adequacy of qualifications, knowledge, skill and experience, both of the designer of the system and the engineer approving it. Where these are in place, and coordination between key

stakeholders is carried out at an early enough stage, a solution can then be developed that will provide sufficient protection to building occupants and attending firefighters, while taking advantage of the environmental benefits that these systems have to offer.

References 1. Fox et al., Living wall systems for improved thermal performance of existing buildings 2.

Thomazelli et al., Acoustic properties of green walls: Absorption and insulation

3.

BSI, BS7974 - Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings – Code of practice

4.

Chow, Dahanayake, Moisture Content, Ignitability, and Fire Risk of Vegetation in Vertical Greenery Systems

5.

Calvo, Green-Cities, How to Combine Fire Safety and the Fight Against Global Warming

6.

Meacham, McNamee, NFPA Fire Protection Research Foundation, Fire Safety Challenges of ‘Green’ Buildings and Attributes

7.

BSI, Fire Performance of Green Roofs and Walls

LUKE CAMERON

Senior Consultant - Fire & Life Safety, Middle East, WSP ABOUT THE AUTHOR Luke Cameron is a Senior Fire and Life Safety Consultant at WSP, and has delivered Fire Strategies for projects across the Middle East and Europe including large scale retail and recreation, masterplans, high-rise, infrastructure, and aviation. He has a particular interest in the application of performance-based design to produce safer, more efficient buildings, which have resiliency to adapt to future technological and societal trends. He is a member of the Institute of Fire Engineers (IFE) and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE), and holds Bachelors and Masters engineering degrees from Dublin City University.

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Cover Story

Fire Safe Buildings Role of Façades and Fenestrations

T

he façade of a building is one of its most vulnerable components, particularly in the event of a fire. Aesthetics, cost, energy efficiency, materials, sustainability, and other factors have gotten in the way of considering fire safety precautions. With the relentless growth of high-rise structures, the situation has become more complicated, posing a larger fire hazard.

Furthermore, developing tall structures requires a focus on fire safety. In high-rise structures, fenestration and façade design should work together to prevent fire propagation to other portions of the structure through the external flammable cladding. Fire safety design can aid in limiting the spread of a fire as well as limiting smoke and property damage. It also means that buildings are safer for all users.

This edition’s cover story discusses a few common causes of building fire, façade/ fenestration materials’ reactions to fire, parameters defining the performance of a fire retardant façade/fenestration materials, fireresistant building materials, active & passive systems for fireproof façades/fenestrations, fire rating of materials, fire standards and codes, etc.

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Cover Story

Fire at Lotus Business Park, Mumbai

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Cover Story

SHABBIR KANCHWALA Senior Vice President K Raheja Corp

AR. ROBIN SISODIYA Principal Architect ASRO Arcade

AR. ASHUTOSH JHA Partner studioAXIS

DEANYAR ILAVIA Principal Consultant SAIACON

AR. AAYUSH CHAUDHARY Principal Architect & Founder ACad Studio

MARIO SCHMIDT Managing Director Lingel Windows and Doors Technologies Pvt Ltd

ARAVIND CHAKRAVARTHY V Head - Codes & Approvals, Business Unit-Fire Protection

Hilti (India) Pvt. Ltd.

Common Causes of Building Fires Fire is mainly caused due to faulty or malfunction of cooking equipment, heating equipment, electrical & lighting equipment, and human negligence during interior work, says Shabbir Kanchwala, Senior Vice President, K Raheja Corp.

accumulate heat and pose a fire hazard if they are too near to light globes.

heating devices, and negligence too can cause disastrous fires.

According to Deanyar Ilavia, Principal Consultant at SAIACON, the main causes in occupied buildings are electrical short-circuits and HVAC equipment malfunction.

Explaining it further, Ar. Robin Sisodiya, Principal Architect, ASRO Arcade adds that cookware can easily overheat and catch fire. Portable heaters should be kept at least one metre away from anything that might cause fires, such as furnishings, drapes, laundry, clothes, and even oneself. Electrical dangers can cause fires in homes with inappropriate wiring. If an electrical appliance is defective or has a frayed cord, it might cause a fire. An overloaded switchboard with multiple adaptor plugs can create a fire due to excessive electrical use.

If not utilised properly, a power point extension cord can provide a fire hazard.

Lampshades and lighting fixtures can

Mario Schmidt, Managing Director, Lingel Windows and Doors Technologies Private Limited too agrees with Ilavia and adds that faulty wiring, use of cheap substandard materials, and chemical or electrical appliances can cause a fire.

A cigarette or a candle too can cause fire, if not properly put out and came into contact with flammable things like furniture. If not handled cautiously, highly combustible liquids such as petrol, kerosene, or mentholated spirits can build a fire, elaborates Sisodiya.

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Ar. Ashutosh Jha, Partner, studioAXIS says, case histories have shown that combustible claddings promote the fire spread on façades. According to Jha, smoking is also a major cause. Other than the above-mentioned causes, Ar. Aayush Chaudhary, Principal Architect & Founder, ACad Studio notes that kitchen accidents, gas leaks,

Aravind Chakravarthy V, Head Codes & Approvals, Business Unit – Fire Protection, Hilti (India) Pvt Ltd lists down the major causes of fire in buildings: • Electrical short circuit • Cooking & heating equipment malfunctioning • Smoking materials such as cigarettes coming in contact with flammable material • Arson or Intentional fires • Negligence and human error in handling and storage of flammable materials

Cover Story According to Ar. Shashi, Space Studio, Chennai, human errors take number one position while listing the cause for a fire, while lack of supervision and inadequate mechanism of early fire detection and prevention can lead to its spread.

Summarising the observations from all experts, Anuj Arya, Veteran Freelancer - Fire Safety & EHS enlists these common causes of building fires as below:

AR. SHASHI Space Studio, Chennai

ANUJ ARYA Veteran Freelancer - Fire Safety EHS

Common causes of Fire Electric shock circuit

Spark from oven

Faulty wiring

highly combustible liquids

Smoking in bedrooms

Careless throwing of burning cigarettes

Electrical equipment

Naked lamp

Candles

Cooking equipment

Curious children

Overheating of electric appliances

Heating

Smouldering fuel

Barbeques

Misfiring of engine

Flammable liquids

Bursting of stove

Lighting

Burning charcoal

A project by Space Studio - The use of non-combustible cladding system will make the façade/ cladding materials inherently fire-safe

Façade/Fenestration Materials’ Reaction to Fire Façade and fenestration materials play a critical role pertaining to fire safety in the following ways, lists Anuj Arya: •

•

The main causes in occupied buildings are electrical short-circuits and HVAC equipment malfunction

Façade and fenestration materials may cause fire spread throughout the building if these materials are combustible/flammable. They could help and propagate the fire from one part of the building to spread to the entire building by Leapfrog effect apart from adding up to the fire load of the building.

The façade and fenestration components could generate toxic fumes by the virtue of their composition, which gets generated from the burning of façade material.

This may result in even more casualties in the event of a fire incident in the building.

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Cover Story •

The casualties may also occur by means of falling of burning debris of these façade and fenestrations components of the building in the event of a fire incident.

The ‘reaction-to-fire’ of façade materials is critical for containing fire spread and carrying out rescue operations, states Sisodiya. When dealing with fire propagation issues, crucial characteristics to examine are combustibility, ignitability, flame dispersion, and burning particles.

Furthermore, smoke accumulation and toxicity are essential components of human safety and fire service rescue activities, he adds. The majority of human casualties in a building fire are caused by smoke and toxins.

Agreeing with Sisodiya, Ar. Jha adds that ‘reaction-to-fire’ of façade materials is very important to contain the propagation of fire and to carry out rescue operations.

IMAGE CREDIT - ANUJ ARYA, VETERAN FREELANCER - FIRE SAFETY & EHS

Ar. Shashi says that materials like wood might have an adverse reaction to a

An iconic tower by studioAXIS

Talking about glass and aluminium façades, Ilavia observes that when exposed to a fully-developed fire (1200 0 C) on any given floor of a building, the glazing cracks up in about 10~15 minutes and the aluminium framework becomes soft and then burns at about 900 0C. The fire then “leap-frogs” to the level above after cracking the glass. ACP, unless it is a “Fire Proof” grade not manufactured in India, actively propagates fires. It is best not to use ACP cladding on any structure irrespective of the height.

Progressive Silhoutes- steel framing provides the best fire protection in case of tempered glass, they block visibility, they are extremely fire resistant, and still provide light. A project by A Cad Studio

How the fire spreads

fire being more easily combustible.

Glass/metals could heat up and melt or crack into blisters which can cause unpredictable damage during a fire outbreak. Concrete and brick offer an incredible level of resistance to fire.

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A major fire broke out at a building in Mumbai’s Malad area

Cover Story

The most commonly used materials on façades are: •

Laminated glass: It is a type of safety glass with an interlayer, mostly Poly vinyl butyl between two or more layers of glass and it doesn’t aid the propagation of fire.

•

Interlayered toughened fire glass: Comprises of two or more layers of glass (toughened) with a special intumescent material filled between them and on exposure to fire, it expands on the surface of the glass and does not allow the heat to pass from fireside to the non-fire side.

•

Aluminium composite materials: ACM panels with fire retardant PE filler when used with rigid polymeric foam insulation present significant fire hazards when used in building façades. If used, the core must be made selfextinguishing so that it shall not act as a medium for the propagation of fire.

(Aravind Chakravarthy V, Hilti) A project by SAIACON

Classifications of Materials Based on the Reaction to Fire To give a full breakdown of the classification, A1 stands for non-combustible materials, A2-non-combustible/ limited combustibility, B, C, D- ranges from very limited to medium contribution to fire, and E & F are high contributions to fire.

Other than the classification based on combustion, we also consider Smoke Opacity, the ability of a material to not produce fumes, ranging from S1- low opacity and smoke production, S2- medium opacity and smoke production to S3- high opacity to smoke production.

Another classification which plays an important role in studying the reaction of a material to fire is the flaming droplet/ particle, which is the element’s ability to produce neither droplets nor inflamed particles, divided into D0, which produces drops and particles, D1, produces drops and/or non-inflamed particles and D2, which produces drops and/or inflamed particles.

Also, materials aren’t the only contributors to a building’s reaction to fire. The geometry of the façade also affects how the spread of fire can be prevented or caused, like horizontal projections, act as flame deflectors whereas vertical projections like a U-shaped façade geometry make it easier for the fire to spread onto other levels of a building.

(Ar. Aayush Chaudhary, Principal Architect & Founder, ACad Studio)

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Cover Story or standards according to which it is tested.

“In the current ongoing debate while rating or overrating one product over the other that the fundamental fact needs to be seen to escape the building as quickly as possible. The often highlighted softening point of uPVC at 80 degrees and aluminium at 600 degrees is not going to make anybody’s life safer as a temperature level above 50 degrees is harmful to any individual,” says Mario.

Fire at Reliance Mart, Indiranagar Banglore

Parameters Defining the Performance of a Fire Retardant Façade/Fenestration Materials A façade must not propagate fire, it must also not let the fire or heat travel from one area to another and it should not disintegrate in the presence of fire for a reasonable amount of time.

The selection of the façade and fenestration materials should be entirely done keeping in mind these parameters.

All other parameters such as aesthetics, economical value, energy-saving, green concept, etc. may be considered considering the fire safety parameters beforehand.

To achieve this, an assessment of the whole system performance instead of individual material is to be done, points out Kanchwala. Correct use of products to be incorporated to get desired fire rating of building façade. It calls for proper testing and certification from a third party.

Chakravarthy says that parameters that define the fire performance of façade materials are Integrity (E), Insulation (I) and Radiation Control (W). There are standards pertaining to the testing of fire rate- glass. Each nation has its code

According to Ilavia, the following aspects can prevent damage due to fire: • Smoke seals – to prevent upward percolation of smoke to the level above. Smoke is the cause of at least 80% of the deaths in the hotel and residential building fires.

• Fire-stops – to prevent flames from moving to the level above through the gaps between the building’s slab/ beam and the CW framework.

• Fire-safing of the aluminium framework of curtain wall (CW) spandrels - A one-meter high, fire-safe spandrel will prevent meltdown/burning of the spandrel glass and aluminium framework and delay upward spread of fire by atleast 30~45 minutes.

Case histories have shown that combustible claddings promote the fire spread on façades, states Ar. Jha. According to him, the parameters which define the performance of a fire retardant façade are: Extent of lateral & vertical fire spread; extent of smoke emissions; extent of droplets emissions, and selfextinction of the fire on the panel.

Arya and Ar. Shashi notes that the crucial parameters that define the performance of a fire retardant façade and fenestration materials are their combustible and toxic (in case of their combustion) properties.

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Case histories have shown that combustible claddings promote the fire spread on façades

Cover Story Key Points to Consider while Designing & Installing Fireproof or Fire-Resistant Façades & Fenestrations Fire safety should be taken seriously at all times, and there are numerous basic measures for reducing the risk of a fire.

Fire safety for façades begins during the design stage. The architect, working with other technical disciplines, should ensure that the design aesthetic intent is achieved while retaining the required technical performance, stresses Sisodiya. It is necessary to employ fire-resistant items and technologies.

These objects and technologies are usually developed through extensive research and testing. Fire resistance testing should be performed on each component of the façade system, says Sisodiya.

Talking about the design, Mario points out that having buildings without openable windows to reach to fresh air and to the fumes to ventilate out of the building are more dangerous in case of fire. Further to this, advanced commercial buildings should have glazing in places which are opening automatically during a fire, so that the smoke/fume can ventilate out of the building to secure those who are inside against the toxic breathing of air as well as to clean the visibility inside the area of the fire brigade, and can have a better view during their operation. Ar. Shashi too insists on sufficient escape possibilities like bay areas, refuge spaces, openable windows, and holding spaces at each floor level.

Combustible claddings promote the fire spread on façades

Ar. Jha advices to design the entire façade system with smoke isolation between floors and elsewhere as required and to provide baffles fixed and sealed between the base structure and façade system. He also recommends providing materials and methods of fabrication, installation, and sealing which meet the statutory requirements and using materials that are non-corroding or protected against corrosion, or of such thickness that

corrosion will not impair the required fire stopping or smoke flashing function during the service life of the system.

Vertical gaps between different fire compartments shall be filled with an approved fire separation and smoke seal. Fire stops and smoke seals play a crucial role in preventing the spread of fire and smoke and in turn help in minimising fire damage and limiting the casualties, adds Jha.

The aspects to consider and precautions to be taken while designing and installing fireproof or fire-resistant façades and fenestrations are: 1.

Façade and fenestration materials should not be combustible/ flammable in nature

2.

The design and the installation of the façade and fenestration components in a building should be such that in no case it would hamper or obstruct the rescue and firefighting operations in the event of a fire incident

3.

The selection of the façade and fenestration should be carried out considering the toxic properties of the material in case of a fire incident

4.

The selection of the façade and fenestration material should also be done considering that there should not be any casualties by means of falling of burning debris of the façades and fenestrations of the building in the event of a fire incident.

(Anuj Arya, Veteran Freelancer - Fire Safety & EHS) T30 DOOR Lambda SYSTEM HUECK Germany, Image courtesy Lingel

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Cover Story Noting down the general requirement of a façade system, Kanchwala points out that it must prove itself to be extremely stable to all external conditions like sunlight, temperature, water, wind, and gravity- faced by high-rise buildings.

For overall façade design, the following general parameters should be considered: • Architectural requirements/ restrictions • Thermal performance to be achieved (U-value, g-value, layer temperatures) • Flexibility (adjustable performance) • Interaction strategy with HVAC systems (extract rate, natural ventilation) • Meeting the fire safety requirements.

The installation of building façade works at the site requires systematic quality control implemented to avoid any issues post-installation.

Talking about the importance of considering and evaluating the fire characteristics of the façade and exterior wall materials, Chakravarthy from Hilti explains the basic characteristics including evaluation of fire rating, combustibility, flame/smoke spread index, self-ignition temperature and fire propagation. It is important to ensure that the curtain wall system and the perimeter fire barrier system are appropriately designed and installed by the trained and qualified installer in accordance with the engineering drawings adhering to the building code requirements.

According to Ilavia, fire-proof or fireresistant façades and fenestrations do not exist anywhere in the world.

In India, it is best that Hilti or Siderise design the fire safing system and get an engineering Judgement of the firesafing design from a certified laboratory (United Laboratories now operate in India) before going ahead with the work.

Fire-Resistant Building Materials There is a wide range of fire-resistant materials like the flame-treated natural products, wherein natural building materials such as lumber and cotton with very poor fire resistance are treated to increase their resistance, making them able to stand up to fire for several minutes, observes Ar. Chaudhary. This type of lumber is used on exterior features to catch the sparks and contain it for an hour before it reaches the interiors of a building. These materials use treated cellulose insulation which acts as a flame-resistant by blocking the heat from those flames and also helps keep the building cool in harsh weather conditions.

A building fire in Mumbai

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Talking about materials, Ar. Sisodiya, Ar. Chaudhary and Ar. Shashi list down the safest few: Concrete is one of the most effective and popular building material for slowing down flames since it is heat resistant and non-combustible. The quantity and quality of aggregate used

in the concrete might have an impact on its utility.

Bricks are fire-resistant when used individually. When they’re employed in building, though, the mortar that holds them together has an impact on their fire resistance. Bricks, made in fire kilns are already highly resistant to fire and depending on construction and the thickness of walls, a brick wall usually achieves an hour to four of fire resistance rating.

Gypsum, commonly regarded as drywall, is a non-toxic mineral. When dry drywall comes into touch with fire, it includes chemically mixed water that turns into steam. When mixed with the glass fibres used to produce the board, a high level of fire resistance is achieved. As a result, a gypsum board can significantly improve a building’s fire resistance. Gypsum is the most common fire-resistant interior finish treated with additives to improve its fireresistant qualities and can deliver fire rating up to three hours in the ceiling and as long as four hours in walls and column systems.

Using multiple layers of gypsum board tends to increase its fire-resistance rating.

Stucco, made out of Portland cement, sand and lime, used for plasters is an excellent and highly durable fire-resistant finish material, says Ar. Chaudhary; a 1-inch layer of stucco can easily lend a one-hour fire rating to any surface.

Another widely used and extremely common material for façades is fireresistant glass, says Ar. Chaudhary. An example of fire-resistant glass is dualpanel glass, which not only takes double the time to break in case of a fire but is extremely energy efficient too. Another glass material to use in such cases is tempered glass, which is heat-treated and usually about four times stronger than regular glass. It is also wise to note that steel framing provides the best fire protection in case of such glass.

Cover Story According to Ilavia, no material except mineral wool insulation, which is currently used in fire-stops and façadework spandrel fire-safing, can resist exposure to a fully-developed fire for more than 20 minutes.

A fire at Nipun Tower in a community centre in Karkardooma area of East Delhi.

An intumescent interlayer is designed to seal gaps around penetrations and window frames. They are designed to restrict the spread of fire across the assembly and can have a one to fourhour fire-resistance rating. These adhere to most building materials like gypsum, concrete, glass, metal, etc.

The use of non-combustible and/or class-1 cladding system will make the façade/ cladding materials inherently fire-safe, says Chakravarthy. For the façade system to be deemed safe, it is important to test and ascertain the fire behaviours of the entire façade system which comprises a spandrel and safing insulation, spandrel glass, aluminium frames (transoms & mullions), back pan, anchors, etc.

Jha adds that fire-stop acts like physical barriers, which by design prevent the spread of flames, deadly gases and toxic smoke through openings in buildings. The whole idea of a fire stop is to ensure that fire does not travel vertically to the upper floors of a building through the gaps between the façades and the floor slabs.

Elastomeric FireCaulk, says Jha, is a water-based acrylic elastomeric fire-rated caulk that offers excellent fire protection and flexibility, even after full curing.

Smoke and Acoustic Sealant is a high-performance acrylic-based sealant for sealing construction joints and through penetrations in non-firerated assemblies, adds Jha. It is used for reducing the transmission of sound through wall openings, stopping the passage of smoke in smoke barrier walls, and for stopping air leakage to reduce the passage of dust and airborne infectious particles.

Firefighting - Mumbai Fire Brigade

Can Glass be a Fire-Resistant Material?

Fire-resistant glass is frequently overlooked. It looks to be a regular, translucent piece of glass. When a fire breaks out and becomes a life or death situation, this specialised construction material provides exceptional resistance to flames, heat, and smoke, and it plays a very significant role in building fire safety.

Standard window glass breaks around 250°F, toughened glass at roughly 500°F, while fire-rated glass may resist temperatures of up to 1600°F. The key cause for this discrepancy is the way it is built. Multiple layers of toughened glass with intumescent interlayers make up fire-resistant glass. When a fire is present, the glass nearest to the flames warms up quickly and shatters into small fragments. The intumescent interlayer is ‘activated’ by this shattering process, causing it to expand and successfully withstand flames, heat, and smoke.

Fire-rated glass creates an effective barrier, separating one room from another and preventing flames from quickly spreading. It reduces the amount of destruction caused and allows time for people to safely escape. These glasses can be used for both internal and external areas, for installation into steel, aluminium or timber frames, partitions, and doors. This type of glass also contributes to preventing the smoke spread.

An interlayered toughened glass can hold for 30 minutes and the chances of splinters flying off might be relatively minimal. It can provide protection from radiant heat thereby protecting all the combustible items on the non-fire side from getting ignited on their own. Upon increasing the number of inter-layers it can provide complete thermal insulation from heat in addition to integrity of the system. Therefore, using inter-layered WFM | MAY - JUNE 2022

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Cover Story

IMAGE CREDIT- ANUJ ARYA, VETERAN FREELANCER

glass is the best bet to ensure radiant heat resistance (EW rating) and thermal insulation (EI rating) upon the occurrence of fire.

A project by K Raheja Corp Multiple layers of toughened glass with intumescent interlayers make up fire-resistant glass

Exterior firefighting and rescue functions benefit from the combined approach of employing fire-resistant glass, implementing installation parameters, and creating openings in the glass façade. I It is widely employed to prevent fire from entering the server and data rooms. The cost of fire-rated glass is the most significant impediment to its use. When a fire compartment is established, fire-rated glass is utilised in the view panels and fire-rated doors in corridors leading to the stairway. As all compartments around are fire-rated, 1-hour fire-rated glass should be placed in the view panel of fire doors.

Active & Passive Systems for Fireproof Façades/Fenestrations Fire prevention systems are broadly classified into two categories, active fire protection and passive fire protection, and any well-equipped firefighting network should be a synthesis of these two systems.

Passive Fire Protection Passive fire protection includes fireproofing materials, ensuring that separations of walls, doors, and other openings created in such a way that smoke and fire cannot transfer for a specific time period, and assuring that

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building components do not contribute to fire spread. The purpose of this system is to delay the spread of fire by creating barriers to its passage for a specified duration, enabling occupants to assemble in a relatively safer compartment and eventually be pulled out to safety.

Generally, façade design considers the passive design for fire safety. In addition, the design also needs to consider smoke vents in the form of an operable window or actuator for smoke. In a few geographies, it is required to provide ‘fire drenchers’ specifically for high-rise curtain wall buildings. Furthermore, Passive Fire Protection (PFP) systems create compartmentalisation through perimeter fire barriers. The purpose of these systems is to prevent the spread of fire by creating barriers to its passage for a specified duration.

Passive systems utilise fire doors to help further compartmentalise the structure and dampers to prevent the spread of fire and smoke throughout the ducts of the building. Another common protection element in buildings with multiple floors is photo-luminescent path markers. These markers aid in the evacuation process by lighting the way through dark or smoky stairwells. Passive fire protection consists of correctly installed smoke seals, firestops and fire-safing of the spandrels.

Passive fire protection, at best, only delays the spread of a fire.

Active Fire Protection Active fire protection system refers to anything that requires a certain motion and response in order to stop or combat a fire. They demand a specific action such as making a sound when smoke or heat is detected or releasing fire extinguisher materials when a fire is detected. They can either be automated or manual for example, a sprinkler system or an extinguisher. These systems require periodic maintenance and audits to verify their workability and response to fire.

Some of the active fire protection systems are automatic, such as a sprinkler system, and others may be manual, like a fire extinguisher. Fire alarms, smoke detectors, and even firefighters are all considered active fire protection systems. In general, there are a few different categories of active protection: •

Detection - primarily takes place using sensors that detect heat, smoke, or flame and send a signal to alarms throughout the building.

• Suppression - anything that can put out fire through direct action either manually, such as fire extinguishers, or automatically with indirect or direct release systems.

• Ventilation - keeping evacuation routes smoke-free with fire-resistant fans.

When the BMS receives a smoke signal, fire alarms are automatically switched on, automatic smoke vents open outward

Cover Story and sprinklers and peripheral drenchers get turned on – automatically. This prevents damage to equipment, furniture, and fittings in the occupied spaces of a building.

There are various ways to contain/ prevent fire spreads Prevention: controlling ignition and fuel sources so that fires do not start Communications: if ignition occurs, ensuring occupants are informed and any active fire systems are triggered Containment: fire should be contained in the smallest possible area, limiting the threat to life safety and the extent of property likely to be damaged Escape: ensuring that occupants of buildings and the surrounding areas can move to places of safety Extinguishment: ensuring that fire can be extinguished quickly and with minimal consequential damage What are Fire Barriers and Fire Stopping Systems?

A fire barrier’s primary purpose is to prevent fire and smoke from spreading. Firewalls, fire partitions, fire check floor, and smoke barriers are commonly used fire barriers.

A firestop or fire-stopping is a form of passive fire protection that is used to seal around openings and between joints in a fire-resistance-rated wall or floor assembly.

Firestops are designed to maintain the fireresistance rating of a wall or floor assembly intended to impede the spread of fire and smoke, explains Kanchwala.

Fire Barriers & Fire Stopping Systems Fire Barriers Fire barriers are internal walls that stretch from floor to floor or floor to roof, covering concealed and interstitial spaces. They are intended to partition areas of a building and are supported by structures such as roofs, columns, or floors. Fire barriers slow the initial flow of heat inside the area of origin, giving building inhabitants enough time to evacuate to safe zones. The fire-resistance rating for these walls is usually 2 to 3 hours.

The most common fire barriers systems include the following: • Firewall: This is a type of wall that resists fire from the exterior of the building. It contains the flames in the area of origin to ensure that it does not spread. The firewall rating will determine how long it can hold fire.

• Fire Partition: These are walls inside a building that subdivide specific rooms and floors. The vertical assembly partitions extend from the floor up to the ceiling.

• Smoke Barrier: It is a type of fire barrier that restricts smoke from spreading. The smoke barriers are either horizontal or vertical. Regardless of the amount of fire, the minimum resistance of the smoke barrier is usually one hour.

Fire Stopping System Fire stopping is best defined as the sealing of any openings to prevent fire (including smoke and heat) from passing through multiple building compartments. The spread of a fire is contained by creating fire-resisting compartments, which subdivide the building (vertically or horizontally). Buildings must ensure that any openings and gaps are fire stopped to restrict both lateral and vertical fire spread.

Among the other priorities, fire stopping is essential, which prevents fire/smoke from propagating between floors if the façades are continuous. There are tried-and-true details to follow when using appropriate interface materials. Any compromise in materials, specs, or detailing at this interface would affect fire performance. Fire stopping is a passive fire protection approach that is often built for a 90 or 120-minute fire rating.

A firestop is a fire protection system made of various components used to seal openings and joints in the fire-resistance-rated wall or floor assemblies. For penetrating cables, they can also be called Multi Cable Transits (MCTs). Firestops are designed to restore the continuous fire-resistance of wall or floor assemblies, impeding the spread of fire by filling the openings in them with fire-resistant materials.

(Robin Sisodiya, Principal Architect, ASRO Arcade and Ashutosh Jha, Partner, studioAXIS)

In curtain wall buildings, the space between the floor and the façades/curtain walls are sealed to prevent the spread of fire.

This is called perimeter fire stopping, adds Chakravarthy. The fire stop and the façade must act as an integrated system upon the occurrence of fire.

A residential project by ASRO Arcade

According to Mario, across the world firestop doors/fire-stop glazing is usually used ONLY inside the building, and not as external

glazing. They are used to protect staircases or different wings/areas of commercial buildings so that the fire cannot progress horizontally within the same floor. For fire protection, two categories are defined: doors stopping the fire & doors stopping the smoke and the toxic fumes. The rating starts with 30 minutes of protection and goes up to 90 minutes. Efficiently designed and constructed fire-stop come with a maximum 2-hr rating, says Ilavia.

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Cover Story

Fire rages through a building

Fire rating requirements on the façade/ doors/windows and the exterior wall systems – Standards & Codes Given the boom in the construction of high-rise buildings in the metro cities of India, it becomes imperative for fire rating of façades, doors, windows & external wall systems so that designers can incorporate the same in their designs & the owner of the project is assured about the safety of buildings & products it is offering to the clients.

Fire can be a severe hazard in high-rise structures unless a strategy for orderly and methodical evacuation is in place, fire drills should be held at least once every three months during the first two years after construction.

Developers must observe the National Building Code 2005 established particularly for fire and life safety requirements. While absolute fire safety is not achievable in practise, the Code recommends measures that will offer that degree of safety that can be “reasonably accomplished, says Sisodiya.

All buildings must be protected by fire extinguishers, wet risers, automatic sprinkler installations, water sprays, and other means depending on their occupancy, use, and height.

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For fire rating of doors/window/glazing, the entire product including the installation process should be tested. Frame material/ gasket/locking mechanism/glass used/installation bolts and anchor all need to be taken into account, says Mario.

Correctly designed and installed smoke seals, fire-stops and spandrel fire-safing in curtain wall enclosed buildings is a must. Windows with masonry surrounds cannot be firesafed. However, a 1.60(+)M parapet + beam can delay the upward spread of a fire from the level below by almost 1.5 ~ 2.0 hours, says Ilavia.

To properly protect an opening in a fireresistance-rated assembly, the proper fire protection rating is required. Determine the required fire-resistance rating of the component under evaluation.

Codes, such as NFPA 101, Life Safety Code, NFPA 5000, and Building Construction and Safety Code, should be made mandatory where a building component is required to have a fireresistance rating. Utilise the tables, “Minimum Fire Ratings for Opening Protectives in Fire Resistance-Rated Assemblies and Fire-Rated Glazing Markings”, found in Chapter 8 of both NFPA 101 and NFPA 5000 to determine

the minimum fire protection rating of the opening protective based on the fire-resistance rating determined.

It should be carefully noted that this table DOES NOT mandate the fireresistance ratings of components, other provisions in the Code will require it.

Confirm through footnotes, other code text associated with the component, and through occupancy-specific provisions that no further modifications to the general fire protection ratings are permitted. In some cases, there may be exemptions for some opening protectives in existing installations or for certain conditions in some occupancies (Ashutosh Jha, Partner, studioAXIS).

The building codes and NFPA 101, Life Safety Code® require that certain building elements meet minimum fireresistance ratings, such as a 2-hour fire-rated wall or a door, says Arya.

In general, fire-resistive installations protect structural elements and separate occupancies, and serve as passive fire barriers providing compartmentation, enclosure, subdivision, or protection.

Knowledge about the fire rating of the façade cladding materials is important. It helps in choosing the best materials that can ensure optimum fire safety standards for buildings and the protection of the building as well as the occupants, concludes Arya.

Standards for Grading Fire-Resistant Materials According to Kanchwala, external façade materials like cladding will need to have the classification through an EN 13501 test, e.g. non-combustible, limited combustibility, combustible, etc.

Combustible materials should not be used on façades. Resistance to fire needs to be validated using one or more largescale fire propagation tests of the mockup of a cladding system like the NFPA 285 or the BS 8414.

Based on the fire properties of different materials, the façade and fenestration

Cover Story materials used in the building are classified as A1, A2, and B. • A1 Fire Rating Cladding Classification: The cladding materials that fall under the A1 fire classifications are the ones with the highest performance. These materials are noncombustible in nature and have no contribution to fire at all.

• A2 Fire Rating Cladding Classification: The construction cladding materials of A2 cladding have limited combustibility properties. They have very limited contribution towards the fire.

• B Fire Rating Cladding Classification: These are the no flashover materials. They are combustible materials that can have contribution to the fire in your building.

Talking about materials, Mario opines that the retarded characteristics of uPVC or the higher softening point of aluminium are not going to have much -relevance as the first thing during a fire which breaks will be the glass. A

very critical point in Indian architecture is the use of safety grills and access to stairways or escape routes. In case of a fire, the safety grill can create a deadlock for everyone inside the building with no chance to escape.

Knowing exactly how building materials behave on certain parameters becomes very helpful for façade designers when considering their use to design a building envelope system.

•

•

Ignitability is the ability of a material to be ignited (catch fire) and is Quantified using test methods like ASTM D 1929 (determining ignition temperature of plastics) or BS EN ISO 11925-2(ignitability by direct flame) or EN ISO 1182 (non-combustibility test).

The chemical composition of a material dictates the amount of latent energy the material has and is Quantified using parameters like Calorific Value and Heat Release Ratio using test methods like BS EN ISO 1716 (gross heat of combustion/calorific value).

The spread of flame, smoke and other behaviour depends on the composition and distribution of potentially flammable ingredients of a material and is quantified using tests like the ASTM E84 (surface burning characteristics of building materials), BS EN 13823 (single burning item), and many others.

The European Classification Standard EN 13501-1 provides guidelines for fire classification of construction products and building elements.

Classification using data from reaction to fire tests summarises the reaction to fire behaviour clearly.

Let’s have a look at the standards for grading fire-resistant materials including glass, ACP, uPVC, etc.

Based on the fire rating characteristic of a glazed surface, fire-rated glass is categorised into three different types namely, • Integrity (E) • Radiation Control (W) • Insulation (I)

•

There are many standards pertaining to the testing of fire-rated glass. The most widely followed standards worldwide are the European and the American Standards (namely EN & UL). The following are the most commonly adopted testing standards for glazed systems:

(Aravind Chakravarthy V, Head - Codes & Approvals, Business Unit – Fire Protection, Hilti (India) Pvt Ltd)

EN

UL

EN 1363

UL 263

EN 1363

UL 10 B

EN 1634

UL 10 C

In India, the British Standards are commonly followed. The test standard BS 476 has been prepared under the direction of the Fire Standards Committee and describes the procedures for determining the fire resistance of elements of building construction.

•

Conclusion Safety of life is the most important aspect that needs to be factored during the design of buildings. Forensic studies have indicated that the primary hazard to humans in a building fire is more from smoke and toxic gases. Nearly three-fourths of all buildingrelated fire deaths are from inhalation of the smoke and toxic gases produced in fires rather than from exposure to flame or heat.

Appropriate testing of façade materials and the perimeter fire-stopping systems are critical to ensure the adequate performance of the façade system of the building in case of a fire. All fire performance components in a building must function as part of the fire safety strategy. The fundamentals of fire control are prevention and containment.

Systems must be so designed that in case of a fire, it can be contained to the greatest extent possible providing the occupants to escape and limit the spread of fire. Designers must emphasise that true protection comes from a fully certified and tested system/assembly.

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“Greater Danger is Not from the Fire Itself, but from the Smoke and Toxic Fumes”

MADHAVAN S R

Senior Associate, Venkataramanan Associates

What are the common causes of building fires?

The common causes of building fires are: • Electrical - Improper or faulty wiring, equipment overload, faulty lighting, etc.

• Cooking equipment – LPG leak, equipment overheating, etc.

• Smoking • Lightning (very rare)

Reliance Life Sciences Centre, Navi Mumbai Fire safety features: Use of fire-resistant granite in cladding

Please throw some light on various façade/fenestration materials’ reactions to fire?

• High resistance to fire/Noncombustible - Stone (like granites and marbles), clay/terracotta, interlayered toughened fire glass, etc.

• No resistance to fire / combustible materials – Like untreated wood or wood dust products • Fire-resistant materials like brick, firerated Gypsum wallboard, concrete, etc.

Lupin Research Park at Pune Fire safety features: Use of Form finish RCC for external façade, Passive fire protection between floors

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•

Ignition resistant materials like highpressure laminate (HPL), specially treated wood, PVC core ACP, etc.

It is important to note here that greater danger is not from the fire itself, but also from the smoke and toxic fumes in event of a fire.

What are the parameters which define the performance of a fire retardant façade/fenestrations?

Fire resistance in façades and fenestrations is generally defined by the following parameters: • The ability to contain the spread of fire • The ability to emit low smoke and no toxic fumes • The ability to self-extinguish • The ability to hold on to fire without spreading/disintegrating, for as much as possible till the occupants evacuate safely • The ability to insulate without significant transfer of heat What are the aspects to consider while designing and installing fireproof or fireresistant façades and fenestrations?

Apart from the 4 points mentioned above, we have to seal all the voids/shafts/ducts between floors and in the façade, to prevent the

Cover Story Explain active and passive systems for fireproof facades/fenestrations? How can we prevent fire spreads?

Active systems for fire spread are those systems which get activated and try to extinguish in event of fire. However, at present, their use is very few or maybe none exists in our country barring smoke exhaust venting and fire drenchers.

Nirlon Knowledge Park, Mumbai Fire safety features: Use of fire-resistant terracotta in cladding, Passive fire protection between floors

spread of any fire/smoke. If any steel is used in the façade, it should be coated with intumescent paint. Glass is the most common fenestration material and great care is to be taken while selecting glass. Fire-rated glass is very expensive and generally not used in external façades. However, a laminated glass could help better than unlaminated glass, to at least maintain the integrity of fenestration in an event of a fire, due to the presence of PVB interlay. NBC and other fire codes also recommend compartmentalisation which should be adhered to.

Tell us about fire-resistant materials which can be used on facades/fenestrations?

Good fire-resistant façade materials could be fire-rated glass (if budget permits), terracotta panels, stone cladding, solid aluminium panels, fire-rated ACP (conforming to relevant codes), brick, etc.

How can glass be a fire-resistant material? How does an interlayered toughened fire glass work?

Glass can be made fire-resistant by making the panel in multiple layers separated by an intumescent layer. In event of a fire, the intumescent layer spreads on the surface of the glass and expands multiple times and protects the glass surface. This happens by the virtue of the intumescent layer burning off first before the heat can get to the glass. However, this property of the interlayered toughened glass, based on its rating, only gives enough time for the occupants to evacuate a building in event of fire.

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Passive systems are those which contain the growth and spread of fire from one compartment to other. The aim is to reduce the amount of damage to the building inflicted by the fire, delaying the collapse of the building structure and reducing the possible life and health risks of the building occupants and the firefighters Therefore it provides the building with the strength to withstand fire for a certain period of time, ensuring the safe evacuation of its occupants and the safety of the building surrounding it.

Passive sealing of all the voids/shafts/ ducts between floors and in the façade will contain any spread of fire/smoke. If any steel is used in the façade, it should be coated with intumescent paint.

What are fire barriers and fire-stopping systems?

Fire stops are the physical installation of barriers in form of plates, sealants, membranes, etc. which prevent the spread of fire, smoke and toxic fumes to various parts of the buildings/ other floors through gaps in façades and external walls, and between floors.

What is the need for fire-rating requirements on the façade/doors/windows and

the exterior wall systems?

Architects and designers are constantly pushing the envelope for taller buildings and sustainable buildings all over the world. Presently, there are no codes for mandatory fire rating for façade elements (Apart from a mention in NBC 2016 about Perimeter Firestopping). However, in the recent events of the multiple incidents of fires and also in the absence of any active façade fire protection systems, it is imperative to look at stringent codes to make our buildings safer and sustainable for all of us.

What are the standards used for grading fire-resistant materials including glass, ACP, uPVC etc.?

A1 Fire Rating Cladding Classification The cladding materials that fall under the A1 fire classification, they are the ones with the highest performance. These materials are non-combustible in nature and have no contribution to fire at all.

A2 Fire Rating Cladding Classification The construction cladding materials of A2 cladding have limited combustibility properties. They have very limited contribution towards the fire.

B Fire Rating Cladding Classification These are the no flashover materials. They are the combustible materials that can have some contribution to the fire in your building.

Apart from above, ASTM E84 talks about Surface burning characteristics of building materials.

KPIT Cummins, Pune Fire safety features: Use of fire-resistant terracotta in cladding, Passive fire protection between floors

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PROTECTIVE, PERFORMANCE AND POWDER COATINGS

Cover Story

“It is Imperative to have the Façade and Fenestration Materials to Meet the Specifications & Fire Resistance Rating as Required by National Building Code of India” protection system for the glass assembly (glass and framing) used in building façade. It is imperative to have the façade and fenestration materials to meet the specifications and fire resistance rating as required by National Building Code

V SURESH, FIE, FRICS, SFIGBC.

Vice Chairman, National Building Code of India President, FOCUS Chairman, Policy and Advocacy, IGBC Former CMD HUDCO

What are the common causes of building fires?

Building fires occur due to misuse of spaces for functions and uses not intended or planned and designed.

National Building Code of India prescribes the requirements of life safety, fire prevention and fire protection, and are well-detailed each of 9 occupancies.

Causes of fire: • A building planned and designed for specific occupancy is used for alternate occupancy and the fire load risk increases.

• Misuse and malfunctioning and overloading of MEP Services such as air conditioning system, short circuit in electrical installations.

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Openable panel

Please throw some light on various façade/fenestration materials reaction to fire?

National Building Code of India specifies the fire resistance rating of the materials to be used in façade in Part 4 and new section 8 in Part 6, and also the active fire

The integrity of the system from structural and fire safety considerations is imperative

Exit isolation fire curtain

Cover Story of India, to ensure leap-frog fire spread aspects are mitigated and assembly protected.

What are the parameters which define the performance of a fire retardant façade/fenestrations?

Non combustibility is an important aspect to align on fire retardant /resistant façade/ fenestrations. The integrity of the system from structural and fire safety considerations is imperative. It is to be ensured that the overall assembly meets this requirement. There are aspects of surface flame spread which also plays an important role in the selection of the materials. While the internal active fire protection system helps and aids to control the fire within the inside of the event zone, however the fire rating of the façade and fenestration helps to control the spread of the fire and issues relating to leap-frog fire spread.

What are the aspects to consider and precautions to be taken while designing and installing fireproof or fire-resistant facades and fenestrations?

As mentioned above, designing and installing fireproof or fire-resistant facades and fenestrations requires materials and also assemblies have the

non-combustibility features and to meet the requirement on control of surface spread of fire in the façade. It is also imperative to have passive fire sealant

between slab edge and façade elements to prevent the spread of fire with-in the building along the internal side of the façade. This includes compliance to firestop materials to control/eliminate the spread of fire.

Tell us about fire-resistant materials which can be used on facades/ fenestrations?

Materials are available to demonstrate the fire resistance, non-combustibility, surface flame spread, drip test which are required to be selected aligned to NBC. In other countries, aspects as above are varied based on height of building. But in India, the requirements were consistent inconsequential of the height.

Fire stop - horizontal and vertical detail

Slab and facade fire stop typical detail

How can glass be a fire-resistant material? How does an interlayered toughened fire glass work?

There are various manufacturing processes through which fire resistance glass can be achieved. Detailed process of manufacturing fire resistant glass to meet the specific requirement of integrity for the defined duration of fire resistance could be obtained from OEMs where global manufacturing standards and processes are followed.

External cladding typical detail

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Cover Story What are fire barriers and fire stopping systems?

Fire Barriers and Fire Stops are passive fire control systems and are planned to maintain the fire compartmentation of the areas inside the building. It is imperative to have fire compartment planned in building to prevent the spread of fire which also helps in damage control of assets and importantly helps in evacuation of the building occupants.

The fire barriers and fire stop are to be selected for specific areas and to maintain the integrity of the compartment area.

These are to be duly labelled and to be inspected for its purpose as installed. Any breaching of the fire barrier and fire stop are to be controlled and corrected.

Smoke heat exhaust ventilation systems (SHEVs)

Explain active and passive systems for fireproof facades/fenestrations? How can we prevent fire spreads?

Active system comprising of provisions of sprinkler for façade glass protection is included in Part 4 of NBC 2016. It is noted that a well-designed and functional fire protection system (sprinklers) would be able to aid in control of fire in the inside of the building. However, based on some experiments conducted towards enhanced coverage of sprinkler from the inside of the building on the façade glass, helps in timely cooling of the glass and maintain the integrity of the glass.

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Passive system comprises of fire-stop to be provided at the slab edge and the façade elements. The same is also included in NBC Part 4, 2016. These two aspects are integrated in active and passive approach in the control of the fire spread. Further smoke heat exhaust ventilation systems (SHEVs) with 10% openable (NBC of India provides for it) can also have actuators which can open glass manually or automated linked to fire detection and alarm system with Tested Solution Range. EN 12101 provides additional norms.

Façade consultants and glazing fabricators and system suppliers have to work together for thal mel (integrity).

What is the need for Fire rating requirements on the façade/doors/ windows and the exterior wall systems?

The insistence of non-combustibility, fire flame spread and fire resistance criteria of façade/doors/windows and the exterior wall systems is to avoid issues of spread of fire externally on the façade of the building and to ensure life safety of occupants from fire and smoke spread. In certain situations, where the refuge areas are outside with façade areas and glass being between refuge and inside areas of the building, the code specifies to have 2-hour integrity of such elements to be with fire barrier to avoid exposure of fire to the people in refuge areas.

Typical fire door assembly

WANT TO BECOME AN UWDMA MEMBER, CONTACT US: MRS. SHOBHITA +91 95609 08115 | INFO@UWDMAINDIA.ORG

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“uPVC is Inherently Fire Retardant, Slow to Ignite, Self-Extinguishing, and has a Limited Flame Spread” of buildings including adequate emergency exits and installing fire alarm systems and fire extinguishers wherever necessary.

Tell us about fire-resistant materials which can be used on facades/fenestrations? How can glass be a fire-resistant material?

Fire-resistant material includes glass, silicon, and foam.

SATHISH KUMAR

Technical Project Manager, aluplast India Pvt. Ltd.

Please throw some light on various materials’ reactions to fire?

The main reaction of façade /fenestration materials to fire is toxic smoke, ignitability, combustibility, the spread of flame and droplets of combustible material.

What are the parameters which define the performance of a fire-retardant material for façade/fenestrations?

The important parameters which define the performance of façade /fenestration materials are their ignitability, combustibility, and the level of toxic smoke it emits.

What are the aspects to consider while designing and installing fireproof or fire-resistant facades and fenestrations?

By choosing suitable construction materials, taking certain precautions in the construction

Smoke in a building

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Fire-resistant glass is a specially laminated glass that helps the product withstand high amounts of heat. As a result, they can prevent fire, heat, and smoke from spreading from one side of the glass to another.

Explain active and passive systems for fireproof facades/fenestrations? How can we prevent fire spreads?

The active systems are given that name because an action is required either automatic or manual to suppress a fire. Installing a fire sprinkler system, fire detection devices, smoke and heat extraction or manual fire extinguishers are some examples.

Passive protection systems do not need to be activated to operate. The main elements are the materials in which the construction is built: walls, doors and glass made up of noncombustible elements.

What are fire barriers and fire stopping systems?

A fire barrier is designed to restrict the spread

Faulty wiring can trigger fire in a building

of fire across the building and can have a one-to-four-hour fire-resistance rating.

Firestopping systems are used, in combination with a various range of materials and components, to seal joints, openings and penetrations in fire-rated resistance walls, windows, or floor systems.

The fire-stopping systems helps in: • Limiting the spread of fire by containing it in a single compartment in its area of origin • Slows the spread of toxic gas and black smoke • Provides vital escape time for people during fire incidents • Protects escape routes, building structure and critical structural members • Minimises costs to rebuild after the fire What is the need for fire rating requirements on the façade/doors/ windows and the exterior wall systems?

To contain the fire at the origin and let people evacuate safely and stop the fire from growing further.

What are the standards used for grading fire-resistant uPVC? Is there any fire testing done on the products?

The standards used for grading in uPVC are EN 13501-1 and BS 476 Part 7.

Generally, uPVC is inherently fire retardant, slow to ignite, self-extinguishing, and has a limited flame spread compared to other materials.

Yes, fire testing is done on uPVC profiles at any NABL or BIS certified laboratories following the standards and we do Vicat Softening temperature, Flame spread, Heat reversion and Ignitability tests.

Cover Story

“Fire Rating is Necessary for any Material When It is Used as a Part of the Structure in Any Building”

RAJESH CHANDER SHARMA Former Director, Delhi Fire Services

What are the common causes of building fires?

Electric origin is seen to be the main cause of most of the fires (about 67%), not only in Delhi but all over the country. This may be due to short circuits, overloading, faulty or damaged wiring, use of non-standard equipment, non-use of safety devices like MCB/ ELCB/RCCB, etc. The cause of the start of the fire may also be attributed to the non-use of proper rating Copper conductors, which is understood to be the main reason for non-tripping of the safety devices.

The cause of a fire is not properly investigated in India and the statistics are based on the report prepared by the officers attending any fire. Many of the fires could be attended by a very junior-level person i.e. a leading fireman or a sub-officer, who is not actually trained for such jobs. The investigation needs highly technical

The Grenfell Tower fire

knowledge, inputs, skills, experience, etc.

Other causes of fires include careless smoking, droplights, loosely fixed candles and curtains, etc. near open flames. The use of fireworks on Diwali day reaches 4-times of the average calls, indicating that fireworks are a major cause of fires on a particular day.

Please throw some light on various façade/fenestration material’s reactions to fire?

The façade materials behave differently depending on their chemical composition or the material used in construction including frame and fixtures. ACPs are known to be flammable and capable of spreading fire through the external façade of the building. The Grenfell Tower fire in the UK is the example we have seen.

What are the parameters which define the performance of a fire retardant façade/fenestrations?

The parameters of any façade material should generally have the same performance as the walls (which is 4 hours’ fire rating) or other components like doors.

Grenfell Tower fire – cause: Electrical fault in a refrigerator; spread of fire largely exacerbated by flammable exterior cladding on the building

What are the aspects to consider while designing and installing fireproof or fire-resistant façades and fenestrations?

The main aspect to be considered for WFM | MAY - JUNE 2022

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Cover Story ceiling level to hold back the smoke and enable its removal through a suitable system of ducts and exhaust fans through a mechanical arrangement.

What is the need for fire rating requirements on the façade/doors/ windows and the exterior wall systems?

Fire rating is necessary for any glass when it is used as a part of the structure in any building in order to meet the integrity, stability, insulation criteria, etc. Fire-rated metal or wooden doors are also available meeting different rating criteria.

A fire swept through the tallest building in the Russian Republic of Chechnya

installing fireproof façades is that the joining of the façade & façade frame with the floors should be such that the smoke or fire is not able to penetrate through the joints and spread to the upper floors.

The heat from the fire should not distort the frame for a pre-decided time, which is four hours as prescribed in the NBC part 4.

How can glass be a fire-resistant material? How does an interlayered toughened fire glass work?

Any glass material which can maintain the integrity, insulation and radiation control of the structure, for a required duration and is supported by a proper certification document is generally acceptable to the fire department.

Fire-resistant glass is specially laminated to help the product to withstand a high amount of heat. Fused Quartz and High Silica glass are known to provide perhaps the highest degree of fire resistance.

Some glasses are known to withstand temperatures up to 1000 degrees. The glasses are available in different ratings and are capable of keeping the smoke & fire contained for a specific duration.

Some glasses are used as sandwiched type glass, with an air gap between the layers for better insulation, etc.

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Wired glasses are also available, which contain a wire mesh grid inside the glass, which can resist heat levels up to a certain temperature. These are used in fire-rated doors as vision panels or they were also used as fire doors in the earlier days when we did not have proper fire-rated doors.

Explain active and passive systems for fireproof façades/fenestrations? How can we prevent fire spreads?

The passive measure for a glass façade includes applying any lamination or fire retardant chemicals/coatings on the frame holding the glass. The glass façade using the required fire rating is in a way has required passive measure built into it.

The fire doors are tested as per international standards (BS- 476 part 20 & 22 and IS-3614 part 2) or other equivalent standards. The physical properties determine the fire retardancy of any material. Aluminium is a good conductor of heat and melts at a low temperature of about 660 0C. The ACPs (Aluminium Composite Panels) may look good from an aesthetic point of view and have other advantages but are not considered safe from a fire safety angle.

Fire-rated doors are being used in almost all the high-rise buildings and underground metro stations in Delhi, for protecting means of escape and to prevent the spread of smoke/fire in the event of any fire.

For active measures, the automatic sprinkler system is considered useful to increase the duration of spread.

What are fire barriers and firestopping systems?

A fire barrier is literally a physical or any other type of barrier including using a fire retardant curtain/ glass/ any other material to prevent the spread of smoke/ fire, horizontally or vertically from the affected part of the building to the unaffected portion. Barriers are also used to hold the smoke in a coffer created at

Testing of façade material for retardancy

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Building Envelope Ventilation by Smoke and Heat Exhaust Ventilation Systems The Strategy using tested, Auto Smoke Vents (AOVs) is to aid naturally in the release of hot black smoke generated during the incipient stages of a fire’s lifecycle and designed based on the ‘Fire Strategy’ drafted for each project.

Bottom Hung Open Out (BHOO) Smoke Vents strategically designed closer to the false ceiling, reducing smoke stagnation leading to a smoke reservoir in spaces like Glass Envelope Office buildings.

The Design - Ideal Dimension and Location of the vents, 1.0m – 1.5m ‘wide’ to 0.6m – 1.0m ‘tall’. We Suggest,

Care must be taken when calculating vent quantities, which should be based on the local code of practice, % floor/ façade area to dimensions of the vent with the shutter installed and Actuator Stroke determined. Request the project ASVs provider for calculations related to the system and designed for your project.

NIKHIL PARASURAMAN

Director - India and SAARC Region, SE Controls

Buildings with double to triple high smokestacks, it is advised to have LowLevel, Make-Up Air Vents - Top Hung Open Out (THOO) along with HighLevel, Smoke Vents, Bottom Hung Open Out (BHOO) or Auto Roof Vents.

‘Auto Smoke Vent systems’ (ASVs) form part of the passive fire protection of a project’s ‘Fire Strategy’.

Product Certification and System Design principles can be categorised by codes under ‘Smoke and Heat Exhaust Ventilation systems’ (SHEVs) – EuroNorms-12101 code of practice and system Planning, Design, Installation, Testing, Commissioning and Maintenance - BS7346-8.

Installation to Handover and AMCs must be carried out by a ‘Manufacturer Authorized Installer’ Partner.

One Lodha Place, Mumbai

Hyderabad International Airport, Hyderabad

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Key Benefits - Fire officers and occupants will have better vision and breathing during the evacuation at the time of the fire emergency, thereby improving overall ‘situational awareness’. For the property, as these vents open in the incipient stages, it reduces the heat trapped due to the smoke, thereby reducing chances of a flashover/roof collapse.

Jio World Centre and Jio World Drive, Mumbai

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IMAGE CREDIT - AGC GLASS EUROPE

“The Reaction of Façade/Fenestration to Fire is Concerned with the Combustibility & Ignitability of Building Materials”

VIKRAM KHANNA

COO – Consumer Glass, COO – Architectural Institutional Business, CMO, CIO, Asahi India Glass Ltd. (AIS)

Palace of Justice, Antwerp, Belgium: fire-resistant glazing installed

What are the common causes of building fires?

Electricity is by far the most common cause of fire outbreaks as it happens quickly, unexpectedly & is often related to ignorance.

Please throw some light on the reaction of various façade/fenestration materials to fire?

The reaction of façade/fenestration to fire is its contribution to a fire to which it is exposed through its decomposition. It is concerned with the combustibility and ignitability of building materials, and it can be used to calculate how much energy they contribute to the spread of a fire.

IMAGE CREDIT - AGC GLASS EUROPE

The second most common cause of fire outbreaks could be human errors. Burning candles that are forgotten, the forgotten pot on the stove, smoking indoors human error is responsible for many fires in the commercial and residential spaces.

Overheating and Arson are some other causes of fire.

Fire-resistant glass focuses on your safety

EN 13501-1: 2018 provides reaction to fire classifications procedure for all construction products including products incorporated within building elements. Fire reaction tests like – Non-Combustibility Test, Heat of Combustion Test, Burning Item Tests, Radiant Panel Test (for flooring), and Single Flame Source Tests, are performed alone or in combination to comply with standards.

What are the parameters which define the performance of a fire retardant façade/fenestrations?

Various factors like fire resistance performance, light transmission, impact resistance, u value, sound reduction & solar factor help to define fire resistance requirement of façade/fenestration.

What are the aspects to consider while designing and installing fireproof or fire-resistant facades and fenestrations?

The selection of the right kind of material is an important aspect to be considered while designing the building. The material surface that is categorized as Class 1 has very low flame spread and is ideal for fireresistant façade and fenestration.

Tell us about fire-resistant materials which can be used on facades/ fenestrations?

Fire resistance glass installed in steel façade/ fenestration system, glass façade installed along with sprinkler system that provides full coverage to the glass meets the fire WFM | MAY - JUNE 2022

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IMAGE CREDIT - AIS

What is the need for fire rating requirements for the façade/doors/ windows and the exterior wall systems?

Fire resistance partition with windows & doors helps to provide passive fire protection to the occupants in the building thereby providing sufficient time for evacuation during the fire incident.

AIS Pyrobel fire-resistant glass used in CSIR, Mumbai

resistance criteria specified in NBC2016, Part 4, Life & Safety Chapter.

How can glass be a fire-resistant material? How does an interlayered toughened fire glass work?

Float-processed glass has softening point at 600-6400C. In the case of interlayer toughened fire-resistant glass, glass on the fire-exposed side starts transforming into the plastic stage as soon as the temperature increases beyond 6000C, which happens in 4-5 Min & the interlayer gets exposed to fire. This interlayer forms a solid structure & withholds outside glass for the specified time limit. In this event, transparent FRG becomes opaque, and the change in the appearance of the glass is an indication of fire on another side. This psychologically helps to reduce panic happening during the evacuation process.

the overall system for detecting and extinguishing fires (fire alarms, sprinkler systems, fire extinguishers).

Selection of the right combination of passive & active fire protection is governed by regulations relating to the nature and use of a building.

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IMAGE CREDIT - AGC GLASS EUROPE

Explain active and passive systems for fireproof facades/fenestrations? How can we prevent fire spreads?

Active fire protection includes all defensive measures and represents

What are the standards used for grading fire-resistant materials including glass, ACP, uPVC etc.? Is there any fire testing done on the products? uPVC & Aluminium frames are not suitable for fire-resistant façade & fenestration applications as they have low melting points. In some parts of the world, for fire resistance insulated aluminium frames are used, but they are limited to providing fire resistance for up to 60 minutes. Moreover, these traditional materials are not capable of providing 2 hours of fire resistance requirements as specified in NBC 2016. In India, steel frames are the most popular for fenestration applications.

In contrast to active fire protection, passive fire protection plays a preventive role by breaking buildings into ‘compartments’ and preventing the spread of fire through the use of fire-resistance-rated walls & floors made up of calcium silicate board or glass. Fire-resistant glasses could help in providing passive fire protection while they also contribute to improving the aesthetics of the building.

AIS Pyrobel-T fire-resistant glass which is made of gel-filled tempered glass technology helps to provide protection for up to 2 Hours for integrity & 30 minutes of insulation. Apart from this, it also helps to restrict heat radiation up to 15 KW/Sq m for 2 hours which provides sufficient time for occupants to get evacuated.

Fire resistance system in the lift lobby area helps to restrict the internal transfer of flame & smoke to other floors happening through a lift duct. Fire resistant exterior wall system helps to restrict the transfer of flames and smoke to either enter or exit the building or from one floor to the other from the outside.

AZ Groeninge hospital in the Belgian city Kortrijk: Fire-resistant glazing plays a key role in the design of healthcare facilities such as hospitals and clinics

The Peace Palace (Vredespaleis), a neo-Renaissance building in The Hague (Netherlands)

Face to Face

“Façade Design Trends in India have Witnessed a Massive Push in Terms of Design Ethos, Materiality, & the Functionality Façades Embody”

Srinagar Medical Campus

Ar. Ravideep Singh is the Associate Director at Creative Designer Architects (CDA), a New Delhi-based architecture firm that has helmed notable projects of diverse typologies across Asia. An alumnus of the University of Illinois U.C, School of Architecture, Ravideep has earned a specialisation in ‘Healthcare Planning’ from Cornell University, NY.

AR. RAVIDEEP SINGH Associate Director, Creative Designer Architects

With a penchant for designing spaces that foster health and wellness, Singh has over five years of experience in healthcare design in India and the United States, working with internationally renowned practices like HDR, HKS, and RSP Architects.

At CDA, he has conceptualised several award-winning projects including AIIMS Guwahati, Pragma Medical Institute at Bathinda amongst others.

Ar. Ravideep strongly believes in the communicative power of design — the ability of empathetically-designed spaces to create uplifting sensory experiences for its inhabitants. Ar. Ravideep has been a speaker at several eminent panels such as the discussion on ‘Emerging Trends in Window and Door Designs: Innovative Designs and Materials’ by WFM Media in May 2021.

In an interaction with WFM, Ar. Ravideep Singh elaborates on his journey as an architect, his major projects, his views on the latest façade and fenestration designs, materials & technologies, and on the future of the façade as a sustainable envelope of buildings.

Here is the excerpt from the interview: WFM | MAY - JUNE 2022

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Face to Face There are many materials for building exteriors available in the market. How do you choose the apt one for your project? What are the criteria?

As the awareness around environmental sustainability, human health and operational economics intensify, building envelopes are looked upon with a completely different spectacle. At CDA, we attribute exterior materials as per site orientation, ease of application, longevity, maintainability, life cycle impact and their impact on human health.

Hoshiarpur Medical College

Please tell us about your practice and its growth as an architectural firm over the years?

CDA began its journey as a small architectural studio led by Maninder Kaur and Mohanbir Singh in the early 2000s. Since its inception, the firm’s work ethos has pivoted around designing and delivering projects that integrate innovation, adaptability and sustainability.

Over the years, we have slowly and steadily built an influential clientele across the country, with an end goal to create spaces that foster wellness, experience, efficiency, economics and functionality. This ethos has enabled us to expand our presence, reach and capacity to deliver innovative designs to the most complex projects that come on board. Today, CDA has a portfolio of over sixty ongoing projects across India, forty-five of which are healthcare projects of varying scales and specialities.

What inspired you to become an architect?

Having been brought up by architect parents, I gained extensive exposure to architecture from a very early age. Since then, I have always been intrigued by the ethical capacity of architecture and its power to impact the built environment and life. With an innate fondness for spatial planning, I feel a sense of gratification when conceptualising spaces and forms and analysing their impact on the end-user experience, economics and the built environment at large.

Could you please talk about a few of your completed and ongoing projects?

Of the several projects that CDA has

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AIIMS Guwahati

Aakash Healthcare, New Delhi Nanavati Hospital, Mumbai

undertaken within the past few years, the most crucial ones are within the healthcare space. AIIMS Guwahati is one of India’s largest and most comprehensive health campuses. It lays heavy emphasis on patient experience, health, wellness and sustainability. Additionally, the Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala Integrated Medical Campuses were recognised during the pandemic for their responsiveness to Covid-19 and CDA’s underlying sustainability and wellness strategies. Another significant project in the pipeline is the expansion of Nanavati Hospital in Mumbai. Set to be one of the largest private hospitals in the city, it attempts to blur boundaries between healthcare and hospitality and be a beacon of international health tourism in India.

Façade and fenestration industry in India has gone through a sea change in the past decade. Tell us about the latest in use of façade & cladding material and technologies?

Façade design trends in India have witnessed a massive push in terms of design ethos, materiality, and the functionality façades embody. Better thermal performance of newer materials and technologies has been the focus, including higher system insulation, lighter component and assembly weight, improved aesthetics, and life cycle performance.

Prevalent trends include electricity-generating solar glass, lightweight composite terracotta, ceramic claddings and intelligent façade systems integrated with the central BMS. Such systems auto-regulate the light penetration and ventilation based on outdoor air quality and a robust network of IoT (Internet of Things) and analytics.

Face to Face

Diyos Men’s Health Centre, New Delhi

What are the key factors to consider while designing and installing façades & fenestration?

There are several factors to be mindful of while designing and installing façades and fenestrations. The first such factor is building orientation for optimal daylighting design. The desired windowto-wall ratios and shading design must be considered while deciding on building orientation.

The second factor is operational efficiency. The architects and designers must conduct building energy simulations for optimal thermal insulation to regulate the heating and cooling loads and the respective size of HVAC equipment. Lastly, ease of operation and maintenance is an essential factor that should be considered while designing façades to curate elements with better life cycle performance and ease of maintenance.

Sagar Hospital, Bhopal

Please brief on the design and technical details of a safe façade, considering fire safety, and wind, rain and earthquake resistance?

Specialised expertise in façade design, engineering and execution are indispensable in today’s data-driven world. To ensure optimal stability in the structure, the façade system should be designed for all components of lateral loads, including wind and earthquake loads, along with all dead and live loads. Further, in glazing and cladding systems, careful detailing towards climate-proofing should incorporate water drainage through built-in gutter sections, weather seals and designed slopes. Similarly, for fire compliance and safety, fire sealants on floor junctions at each level should be incorporated along with an appropriate

Hospital at Kapurthala

Krishna Chemicals, Raipur

design for requisite openings in the façade for smoke extraction.

How would the façade design and other elements of the façade help the building to be energy efficient, at the same time provide a better interior environment?

While it might sound paradoxical to ensure optimal comfort for all building users, this aspect has been gradually mastered during the past decade. It has been achieved by instilling a certain degree of flexibility in the building envelope, allowing occupants to control their environments through responsive shading devices, acoustic finishes, etc., to regulate optimal daylighting, glare and acoustics.

Apart from the building users, the building operators and managers are another set of crucial occupants who function as a relay between the users and the working of other building systems. Therefore, the synchronisation of this ecosystem with the BMS is possibly the most plausible answer to curating a high-performance enclosure system today.

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Face to Face

Max Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, Delhi

What about sustainability and environmental considerations when choosing materials for a project?

The façade is the first interface of the building with the environment and its adversities. Based on the latitude and longitude of the site, the building envelope should be capable of dynamically modulating the climatic extremes such as temperature fluctuations, wind pressures, seismic forces, etc., in an integrated manner.

The material constituents that make up the façade assembly should be selected on a macro level based on their embodied energy and its life cycle impacts. Further, it is also crucial to analyse how the façade interacts with other components of the ecosystem, avoiding adversities such as bird strikes, blinding glare, etc., using appropriate fenestration sizing, design and treatments.

a certain degree of flexibility towards the percentage of openings, location and configuration of sharing devices besides being an intelligent link between the building indoors, its mechanical systems and the outdoor environment. Therefore, a robust IoT ecosystem integrated with the components of the façade that self-learns based on analytics, user and environment behaviour and improves performance seems likely in the future.

ventilation whenever the weather allows.

This feature will curate a realm where mechanical systems are employed when required without compromising occupant thermal comfort and indoor air quality.

What is your advice to young, aspiring architects?

The only advice would be to think ahead, always. We are amidst a fast-moving technological tide that is dynamically impacting how industries have operated conventionally. Such a milieu necessitates an inquisitive, data-driven and responsive outlook toward different aspects of design. This mindset would engineer resilience in designers, the project and the environment at large.

Paras Hospital, Kanpur

According to you, what is an intelligent building? How can intelligent and sustainable façades bring in the greenhouse effect and also restrict the intensive use of air conditioners?

In simple terms, intelligent buildings are assemblies that have the innate ability to acquire data and strategically apply it for enhanced outcomes. An intelligent façade is expected to operate with a high degree of flexibility in carefully regulating the interaction between the building indoors and the external environment.

For example, a holistically designed smart building would utilise air conditioning only when needed by intensifying natural

Ramakrishna Care Hospital, Raipur

Sarvodaya Hospital, Noida

Max Super Speciality Hospital, Vaishali

What are your views on future façades & fenestration technologies, and materials?

Like other building components, a future façade must be integrated and intelligent. In the future, façades are expected to embody

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Mayo Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow

Face to Face Case Study - 1 floor primarily houses in-patient rooms towards the front with a double skin façade along the south to minimise heat gain in summer. The rear section houses more controlled functions such as operating rooms.

The second-floor uses rejuvenation and Ayurveda therapy rooms and a small cafe with a semi-open terrace for visitors to enjoy a post-treatment coffee.

© Noughts and Crosse La Midas Wellness Centre, Gurugram, Haryana

La Midas Wellness Centre Gurugram, Haryana The La Midas Wellness Centre in Gurgaon is a piece of architecture that brings forth the finesse with which the architects have refurbished a twenty-year-old residential dwelling into a wellness centre.

waiting areas and other peripheral rooms into counselling and consultant functions on the ground floor. The first

The design of the wellness centre, primarily dealing with dermatological issues for women, takes inspiration from the female form. A complete turnaround of the programmatic configuration has been carefully choreographed alongside the design concept. Manifesting the formal notion of the volume, the façade detailing with definitive curves and the juxtaposition of textures help amplify the design’s starkness amidst its context. As the sun sets, the mildly lit façade comes alive, thereby accentuating the form in the evening sky.

The facility houses the clinical treatment rooms of the various services and spaces to run spa and rejuvenation programs.

The spatial planning transmutes the house’s living areas into interactive

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The flow of curves used in the lighting fixture, furniture selection, partitioning, and the façade is synonymous with the elemental understanding of the female form. It employs a doubleskin perforated metal screen with a seamless finish that keeps harsh sunlight at bay.

Together, the bold and subtle intricacies in the building’s design adhere to the cohesive idea of fluidity and the nuance with which each element is true to unifying the building’s entirety.

Intended to be more than a mere facelift, the design makes way for a well-nurtured concept to come to life through built form.

Quick Facts:

© Noughts and Crosses The design of the wellness centre, primarily dealing with dermatological issues for women, takes inspiration from the female

• Project Name: La Midas Wellness Centre • Location: Gurugram, Haryana • Client: Neelkanth Hospitals • Architect: Creative Designer Architects • Other Consultants: • Structural: NA (Adaptive Re-use) • Lighting: CDA • Façade: NS Constructions • Materials used for façade & fenestration: Perforated metal skin • Commencement Date: February 2020 • Completion Date: February 2021

Face to Face Case Study- 2

The Educliff Global School

Educliff Global School Darbhanga Tehsil, Bihar The Educliff Global School is a CBSE accredited primary school designed by Creative Designer Architects. The school is a result of a philanthropic endeavour led by a group of professionals in New Delhi who emphasise the “lean” design approach to maximise the operational cost of the project’s construction. Sited in Dularpur village in Darbhanga Tehsil of Bihar, the school had to be designed to be at par with global education standards.

This challenging, yet intriguing brief veered the architects towards exploring indigenous techniques and vernacular principles of construction. Thus, the design intent is centred around the locally built architecture by the village artisans and creating spaces that foster learning, well-being, and productivity for the children. This attempt has been furthered by harnessing solar passive techniques using the local materials to create high-performing architecture that scores low on operational and embodied energy, and keeps operational costs minimal. A lifecycle approach has been

incorporated to use low-energy materials and perform operations vis-a-vis the factors of safety, longevity, durability and functionality.

The design concept creates spaces that brew cultural collaboration amongst the students and villagers. Therefore, the provision of shared community infrastructure for meetings and events

takes a centre stage in the planning process, contributing to an increase in revenue. Architecturally, this concept translates into a U-shaped building that wraps around a recessed community space, which serves as an amphitheatre and assembly area.

The spatial planning of the Educliff school comprises three zones, namely

The design intent is centred around the locally built architecture by the village artisans

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Face to Face the kindergarten, primary students block and the administration. Discreet access leads to the extreme NorthEast of the site where the kindergarten block is strategically located to ensure safety and security. The opposite arm is the students’ block, and flanked by the two in the middle is the administration block. A structural grid of 24’ X 24’ is employed to allow for functional resilience and transform into spaces that host alternative uses, increasing the life cycle of the building by promoting adaptability. The design encapsulates the vibrancy of interactive spaces for student collaboration, such as staircases with articulated seating, recessed amphitheatres etc.

The building envelope explores modulating fenestrations, such as large expansive windows along north to welcome daylight and double skin jaali along south to reduce heat gain.

The brick jaali of the façade is vital to augment better indoor air quality through enhanced and consistent airflow in the spaces.

Additionally, to create an efficient and sustainable building, solar passive techniques to enable energy-saving and optimisation of solar energy have been applied. The U-shaped building block form opened up along the north-east to maximise daylight along the longest perimeter, while enabling

The U-shaped building block form opened up along the north-east to maximise daylight along the longest perimeter

robust cross-ventilation. Solar panels on the terrace garden for energy generation further the project towards self-sufficiency and sustainable performance.

To achieve a steady decrease in operational costs, finishes such as exposed concrete and brickwork were used to help reduce recurring maintenance efforts and expenses.

The intention to create a built form inspired by the local construction practices has been pursued using exposed fly ash bricks for the jaali, exposing concrete and locally sourced

wooden screens. Native plants have been used for the landscape using xeriscaping, which minimises water consumption. Furthermore, in pursuit of sustainable practices, zero discharge ETP and STP was installed to manage waste.

Dularpur village, with 233 households and a small population of 3500 people, inspired the architects to seek solutions in vernacular architecture and construction practices that have proven to be sustainable for decades.

The school which will form the datum to the conversation in the community will also support the learning curve of many children, required to embrace the locale in its design approach and manifest as the nucleus of villagers’ interactions.

Quick Facts • Project Name: Educliff Global School • Location: Darbhanga Tehsil, Bihar • Client: Dularpur Charitable Trust • Architect: Creative Designer Architects • Materials used for façade & fenestration: Exposed brick jaali • Commencement Date: June 2019

The building envelope explores modulating fenestrations

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• Completion Date: December 2022

Industry Speaks

Boulevard Heights, Dubai

“Siderise Delivers High-Performance Passive Fire Protection Solutions for 50 Years”

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Industry Speaks

Sreenivas Narayanan has over a decade’s experience in sales, business development and new market development, the majority of which has been in the field of passive fire protection and working in the fenestration Industry since 2008. Sreeni has been in the Middle East since 2007. He has worked extensively with AHJs, contractors, architects and developers in the Middle East, India and the Asia Pacific, assisting and advising the various stakeholders on matters relating to standards, testing, code compliance, etc. On behalf of Siderise, Sreeni has been instrumental in ensuring successful completion of numerous large-scale system tests relating to external façade assemblies.

SREENIVAS NARAYANAN (“SREENI”)

Technical and Compliance Director – MEI + AP, Siderise Insulation

Uday Shetty is an entrepreneur and a veteran to the Indian façade industry with over 25 years of industry experience. He has recently joined Siderise Group as Director for their newest office in India. His expertise across all major functions and close understanding of the market dynamics shall help set up a long term strategy on fire safety in the façade industry. Uday Shetty is planning to work closely with key stakeholders to improve fire safety standards in India, which will lead to safer buildings. Also through the India office, he will enhance technical services & support and work to improve compliance for the future generation.

UDAY V SHETTY

Director, Siderise India Pvt. Ltd.

In an interesting interaction with WFM Media, Sreenivas Narayanan and Uday V Shetty from Siderise talk about their company’s major projects and milestones since bringing 45-years of expertise to India in 2017, their passive fire protection solutions, the need and techniques for designing fire-safe façades, the challenges faced by the industry during the pandemic, and their ambitions for helping India set the benchmark for safer buildings in South Asia for the coming years.

Please brief us about your Siderise’s journey in India? What are the milestones you have achieved?

Uday V Shetty (US): Siderise expanded into the Indian market in 2017. In collaboration with AllArch India Pvt Ltd, we have successfully completed 150+ projects PAN India with more than 30 underway today.

The journey since our first project in 2018 has been very exciting, reaching

a point where Siderise India Pvt Ltd is now incorporated with a new regional office in India. This move solidifies our commitment to our clients and partners who in turn are committed to improving fire safety and effective compartmentation in façades. Through the new office, we have strengthened operations and support services with a management team and technical site services.

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Industry Speaks Tell us about your product offerings?

Sreenivas Narayanan (SN): For over 50 years, Siderise has been supplying the construction industry with highperformance passive fire protection solutions for façades and construction: • Slab Edge perimeter fire stop and smoke seal • Cavity barriers • Open state cassette inserts • Spandrel Insulation + Protection fire boards • Cavity trays • Linear gap seals • Bespoke solutions such as balcony bracket protection • Façade acoustic upgrades

You are one of the leaders in the industry. What are Siderise’s USPs and how they have been maintained consistently throughout the company’s growth?

US: From the very beginning of our business, we have set out to act with “integrity in all we do.” Not only does this mean developing superior and fit-forpurpose products and systems that serve to contribute to building safer cities, but applying technical diligence and striving

These are supplied with comprehensive technical data, detailing all aspects of their performance, supported by thirdparty test certifications and test data.

Siderise Nexus fusion

Curtain walling and fire board

Siderise masonry set

for betterment. New product ideas are often born out of collaboration with project partners and the problems they face, and our solutions are subjected to rigorous testing regimes to verify performance and are third-party certified by credited bodies to validate claimed performance. This not only ensures they will comply with legislative and industry requirements but also continually seeks to push the boundaries of passive fire safety to the next level, raising the bar across the construction industry whilst providing reassurance. This includes tests to multiple British (BS), American – (ASTM) (NFPA) and European (EN) standards for both products and complete systems, as well as those created by key organisations such as the Association for Specialist Fire Protection (ASFP) and Centre for Window and Cladding Technology (CWCT).

All our solutions are backed by support from our strong Middle East technical team (based in Dubai), who can provide marketleading support with design expertise and an understanding of local building codes and standards. They can provide everything from project-specific advice and details to specific calculations and engineering evaluations. They can also work with project teams to develop a bespoke product or system tests to demonstrate compliance with various performance criteria, depending on application or arrangement.

Name some of the major projects in India in which your products have been used?

US: Some of our major projects in India are: ICC 1 and 2, RMZ – MY Home Sky View, Rupa Renaissance, World Trade Centre – Chennai, Bhutani – Noida; and World One & Oberoi 365 – Mumbai.

RH50 30-30

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What does sustainability mean to Siderise?

SN: Being a sustainable business means not only operating in an environmentally conscious way, but also ensuring we have a positive effect on the communities we operate in. Our products are produced at our dedicated facility in Wales, UK, which has been accredited to ISO 14001: 2015

With almost half a century of experience, at Siderise we have the products and insight to enable you to create a beautiful building without compromising the passive fire safety of the external envelope.

Using data collected from hundreds of fire tests, and with the ingenuity of our technical team’s vast experience and capability, we will work with you to develop the best solutions for the design of your building.

Our Integrity. Your Designs.

Great Buildings.

Discover more at siderise.com

siderisebyyourside.com

Industry Speaks

SLS, Dubai

for designers and façade engineers to understand how passive fire products work within the key façade types. Engaging with manufacturers’ training programmes is a good first step here, as they are the experts in their field. Advice and guidance can also be sought from reputable trade bodies such as the Association for Specialist Fire Protection (ASFP) and the Centre for Window and Cladding Technology (CWCT).

Oberoi 360 World Hotel, India

Environmental Management Systems.

We use state of the art manufacturing processes and environmentally conscious materials. This allows us to meet our customers’ requirements quickly and efficiently whilst providing them with solutions that have minimum impact on the environment.

This edition of the magazine is on Fire safety and Façade design. Tell us about the key points to be taken care of while designing fire-safe façades and fenestrations.

SN: Passive fire protection is essential to ensure safe buildings. Therefore, it is vital

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What are the current trends in thermal and fire protection products in India?

SN: The current practice is improved whereby all major stakeholders are focusing to use only tested and accredited products. The industry is also moving toward higher performance requirements like spandrel protection, addressing the leapfrog effect, and compartmentation in external façade assemblies that use various types of cladding materials. It is also important to note that the government CED committees are looking for effective implementation and improving local codes and standards.

What is the current situation of your industry when the world was facing the COVID-19 challenge and what are the measures taken post-COVID? US: Protecting all aspects of employee health and safety has always been embedded into the Siderise organisation, from providing regular safety training to implementing policies that support wellbeing. During the pandemic, these measures were put to the test. However, through clear management, open

Fountain View, Dubai

communication and heartfelt initiatives designed to keep people connected, our supportive workplace culture has thrived. At our manufacturing plant in the UK, we implemented a COVID Risk Assessment plan which worked alongside governmental guidance to ensure all onsite staff were kept safe whilst ensuring we could maintain supply for our customers during this challenging time.

This is managed by a dedicated RA team, made up of people from all departments and has been communicated to the whole business, with the current RA level clearly displayed on the intranet for all to see. This is supported by onsite LF testing of all site-based employees twice a week, and of any visitors, by our occupational health providers. Alongside protecting the physical health of employees, many initiatives were introduced to encourage staff working from home to stay connected, motivated and positive. An informal internal newsletter and Facebook Group were created and used to provide regular business updates and disseminate information and resources to encourage mental health self-care. Online mental health awareness training was also made available for the entire business.

Paramount, Dubai

Industry Speaks What practices should be adopted by the industry to overcome these challenges and deal with the after-effects of this pandemic?

US: Having strong policies and communications channels already in place put us in a good position as we learned to navigate the challenges of COVID-19. As an international business, we had already embraced the use of remote communication platforms to a certain extent, but moving forward, the industry as a whole will need to be prepared to get to grips with a more digital-led business model — and there are some great benefits to doing this.

250 City Road, London

Boulevard Point, Dubai

Al Fattan, Dubai

Please brief on your marketing and sales strategies and the latest steps taken towards achieving the best results? Do you organize some awareness generation activities for your customers?

US: In addition to working collaboratively with our customers to find the best solutions for their projects, we also share the knowledge we have gained over the years through offering multiple CPD and training opportunities. These include full CPDs talks and educational content for architects, specifiers and engineers covering a range of issues, including firestops and curtain wall regulations, cavity barriers within ventilated façades and more.

What are the major opportunities for your business in India?

US: Post Covid, the Indian construction industry is recovering at a fast pace, even when the global shortage of raw materials and associated price increases pose challenges. The government investment in infrastructure has been the main focus for recovery and effective implementation has led to growth in tier 2 and tier 3 cities apart from metro cities.

We want to help make sure that India as a country does not repeat the mistakes of others, by doing it right the first time and adopting best practice principles at all stages of a building project, including post-construction.

We also work closely with our delivery partners, located in regions across the world, to ensure they have access to all the product and installation information they need to supply our products with confidence.

Newfoundland Tower, London

More widely, we are working to raise awareness of the vital importance of passive fire protection within the wider industry through active participation in several key industry bodies and technical committees.

What are your goals and plans for the next 5 years?

US: As global businesses look to establish offices in India, the build environement, and requisite fire and life safety protocols have to be enhanced and improved. Through education and knowledge sharing, we hope to improve the stakeholder responsibilities to ensure safer buildings. Currently, the trend is fire safety, where wrong choice is often made, and it needs to be a mandated approach.

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Project Watch

Prismatic Glass Effect and Giant Canopy at YPCC Chanakya, New Delhi design & engineering, immaculate planning, production in a controlled environment and installation under expert supervision.

The other important aspect during the finishing of the project was that the work was to be carried out using specialised access equipment and not scaffolding as the building could not be scaffolded once OC was received. As a result, proper planning and choice of correct boomlifts to be hired and it was essential to complete the job as well as ensure proper finishing quality.

The brief was to create the effect of prismatic glass at the main atrium.

The entire journey was of extreme patience and hard work working continuously with the international and local architects along with the client to create a glass box with a jewel effect.

Multiple mock-ups were done with the design progressing and improving at each stage. It required installing 300 jumbo glasses in a prismatic fashion across 3 levels perfectly aligned in a linear and vertical fashion to create the complete effect. The glass had to be carefully sized, grooved, processed and laminated with special strength film to achieve the desired effect. The finishing of the joints had to be immaculately spot on and perfect.

which had to complement the glass box with concealed cove lighting and the edges and lines of the same matching from end to end when broken into different squares as well. This required multiple materials to be integrated for the entire canopy to function as an integrated element – MS for structure, Galvum sheet with additional waterproofing and drainage for the reliable waterproof system, rockwool insulation with mesh and Calcium silicate board for acoustic insulation during rain and then Fire Retardant ACP for aesthetics. This required precision sheet metal engineering and working which was achieved with proper

The essential ingredients of success were great teamwork, proper synchronization between client, architect, façade consultant and contractors, great planning, and quality workmanship.

Quick Facts: Project: Chanakya (YPCC) Location: Chanakyapuri, New Delhi Client: DLF Architect: DPA Design Team: Mr. Sohrab Dalal, Mr. Sanjay Madan, Ms. Shweta Initiation of Project: 2016 Completion of Project: 2018 Façade Contractor: The Rishabh Winpro Pvt Ltd Email : mail@alproindustries.com Website : www.winprowindow.com

In addition, the design was also to keep in mind the ease of replacement and maintenance in future. Therefore, instead of a solid embedded system for glass installation, a rigid and strong snap-on system was created.

After the initial design, a giant canopy as a design element was to be added

The prismatic glass at the main atrium

Creating a glass box with a jewel effect

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Product Watch

An Aesthetic Eyecatcher from SIEGENIA convincing in production: fabricators benefit here from the cost-effective complete delivery of the threshold with the aid of the COMFORT UNIT – including the precisely fitting grid for the threshold.

Verified security up to RC3 (DIN EN 1627ff) No compromise in terms of safety: ECO PASS SKY axxent and PORTAL HS, SIEGENIA’s hardware for lift and slide elements, set standards with regard to security. The efficient solution is now available in a number of versions with certified burglar resistance in RC2 and RC3. End-users needn’t forego barrier-free access even in the RC3 version.

ECO PASS SKY axxent from SIEGENIA: turning large timber-aluminium elements into eyecatchers

The ECO PASS SKY axxent barrier-free threshold ECO PASS SKY axxent from SIEGENIA combines barrier-free access to the outside with a zero-barrier threshold and unique design benefits, turning large timber-aluminium elements into eyecatchers. This begins with an optical adaptation of the threshold to the frame material with the aid of a doubling into which the running rail is discreetly integrated. End-users benefit from a valuable appearance without any steps with regard to aesthetics and barrierfreedom, this threshold sets standards for lift and slide elements. The cube design of the sash cover caps fulfils the highest aesthetic demands. The streamlined metal covers provide value down to the last detail. With only two millimetres on show, they are barely visible and are convincing due to their invisible fixing.

Just as elegant is the style drain grid design, which is also suitable for use in combination with a drainage gutter. Great emphasis is placed on aesthetics with this

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solution because the optical design of the threshold and outside area are precisely and mutually coordinated. The passage can also optionally be equipped with floor lighting.

ECO PASS SKY axxent also shows its strengths with regard to sill installation.

In terms of a qualitatively and functionally high-quality comprehensive solution, SIEGENIA has cooperated with a leading drainage and sealing specialist to achieve this purpose. The efficient design with sealing plates, sealing wedges and base profiles provides maximum compression.

The grid system ensures reliable water drainage. The high-end solution is also

Ordering made easy With the ordering of the PORTAL HS – both with the ECO PASS SKY axxent threshold and with other threshold variants – fabricators benefit from the cost-effective processes with easy handling: with the COMFORT UNIT, window manufacturers can purchase customised, preassembled complete packages from SIEGENIA. This also includes the easy and time-saving ordering of RC-certified versions. All components are assembled in a complete package.

For more details on the product, contact:

SIEGENIA India Pvt. Ltd. Plot no. 52, Sector 37, Udyog Vihar Phase VI, Gurugram 122001, Haryana, India.

Email: info-in@siegenia.com Website: www.siegenia.com Contact: +91- 9971177168

3

Space PORTAL lift-slide systems open up new possibilities.

➊ SIEGENIA PORTAL hardware combines enhanced comfort with a clean design in any size. ➋ The zero-barrier threshold with perfect sill installation ensures seamless passages and transitions and allows smooth integration of the fixed glazing into the floor. ➌ With its integrated smart drive, the system can also be operated via an app.

Discover new room comfort solutions: www.siegenia.com

Email: info-in@siegenia.com

Contact: +91-99711 77168

Adress: SIEGENIA India Pvt. Ltd., Plot No. 52, Sector 37, Udyog Vihar, Phase VI, Gurugram 122 001, Haryana, India

Distributor enquiry solicited.

SIEGENIA Window systems · Door systems · Comfort systems

Product Watch

AIS GYLDE : The State-of-the-Art Lift and Slide Aluminium Door System glass solutions by AIS. This is what enables superb, seamless installations. AIS Glyde incorporates not just one technology, but several unique systems to enable flexibility, wider spans, heavier panes, and smaller individual components.

AIS Glyde – sleek. smooth. spectacular.

A

AIS Windows offers a comprehensive range of fenestration products in uPVC and aluminium substrates. Available in a range of customisable options, AIS Windows are designed for use in both residential and commercial spaces. AIS Windows enriches lifestyles through enhanced aesthetics while also offering varied solutions in acoustic comfort, privacy and security. It is a one-stop solution for all your doors and windows needs.

IS Glyde is the only zero threshold, lift and slide Aluminium door system available and made in India with technical expertise from Savio, Italy. It is India’s first and only state-ofthe-art lift & slide door system, which features advanced technology that enables frames as high as 4m#, weighing up to 400 kg, with up to 20% wider vistas. (#Available only in select combinations.

Frame height is round up of 3.95m.)

AIS Glyde is the result of a collaboration between two industry leaders. Designed from the inside out, its innovative technology enables the frames to be almost invisible, especially when paired with a wide range of

The smoothest lift & slide door system in India

For more details on the product, contact:

AIS Windows 17F, New Industrial Town Faridabad Haryana 121001 Email: ais-windows@aisglass.com Website: www.aiswindows.com Contact: 1800 1034 805

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Product Watch

ALSTONE India Launches Futuristic & Revolutionary Alstone Alcomb

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LSTONE, a leading manufacturer of High-Pressure Laminate (HPL) & fire rated composite panels in India, launches a futuristic, revolutionary Alstone Alcomb.

Alstone Alcomb is unique and has features like fire protection - A2 grade, high strength and excellent rigidity, lightweight, impact & sound resistance, and 100% recyclable. Right from building façades, ceilings/ flooring panels and furniture to commercial/military vehicles and doors and floors of railways - Alstone Alcomb can be used in a wide range of applications.

Alcomb is a robust yet lightweight panel that’s composed of two aluminium alloy sheets facing each other and an inner honeycomb core that’s made from aluminium foils – a true inspiration of the natural hexagonal honeycomb. The unique honeycomb structure makes the product lighter than other materials and also improves the rigidity and stability of its body. Besides, these panels are eco-friendly and are completely recyclable and reusable.

Aluminium alloy, used for the construction

of these panels is a non-combustible material that works well as a fire retardant and fire prevention material. Also, it is highly non-radioactive and thus does not emit any harmful gases. These energy-conserving properties make these panels a perfect choice for various applications such as construction and architecture, industrial, railways, marine, automotive and aviation.

The structure of the honeycomb panels is connected with each other like I-beams. The skin sheet bears the in-plane load like an I-beam flange, function of the honeycomb code is similar to the Web of I-beam bearing shear stress, connecting and supporting both skin sheets. This results in high strength and excellent rigidity.

Sumit Gupta, Managing Director, ALSTONE while highlighting the properties of Alstone Alcomb says, “ALSTONE is a brand synonymous with innovation, design and quality. Our latest Alstone Alcomb is a futuristic and revolutionary panel because of its superior quality control procedures that include rigorous testing under the most stringent standards. It is lighter than other materials due to its unique honeycomb structure, which also improves the rigidity and stability of the buildings.

With Alstone Alcomb, we can build upon the trust that our customers already repose in us by extending a 15-year warranty on our honeycomb panels.”

For more details on the product, contact:

Alstone Manufacturing Pvt. Ltd. 15th Floor, Vijaya Building, Barakhamba Road, Connaught Place, New Delhi - 110001, India Email: lalit.midha@alstoneindia.com Website: www.alstoneindia.com Contact: +91-11-41232400

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Product Watch

Alumil Launched Three New Partition Systems for Indoor Spaces launches SMARTIA P150 Urban, an extraordinary solution for office partition systems. The series is based on single glazing that is firmly fixed on a “multi-leveled” aluminum frame (3-D).

The design of P150 Urban stands out resembling steel constructions (steel look). This is the result of thin intermediate aluminum profiles that form small glass surfaces (grid). The distinctive design of the system renders it a solution that brings a special character into a space providing sufficient – for single glazing – levels of sound reduction (34 dB).

T

ALUMIL Partition P100 Slim

he effective partitioning of indoor spaces is highly important, as it aims to improve the working conditions, by enhancing privacy, natural lighting, and the overall aesthetics. Also, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, the partition systems provide an additional protection line against the spread of the virus, whilst maintaining transparency among spaces. ALUMIL’s three (3) new partition systems, with single or double glazing, enrich the company’s product portfolio in the partition category and offer solutions for every need.

SΜΑΡΤΙΑ P100 Slim SMARTIA P100 Slim is a minimal partition system with glazing framed by aluminium profiles and is ideal for offices. It is characterized by very thin profiles (30mm) which allow high levels of natural lighting and provide an aesthetically unique result. In addition, P100 Slim uses double glazing that contributes to the system’s total sound reduction at 47dB. SMARTIA P100 Slim is ALUMIL’s main solution for minimal glass partitions and constitutes an excellent choice for contemporary projects. Its robustness in combination

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with its elegant design and the broad selection of technical solutions, assure complete design freedom.

SMARTIA P200 Slim Slim SMARTIA P200 Slim is ALUMIL’s new partition system, with a concealed aluminium face width (structural type). The aluminium face width (49mm) remains concealed thanks to a very thin coating

ALUMIL Partition P200 Slim layer. The system is an exceptional solution for the partitioning of work environments, as it provides significant sound reduction, enhances natural lighting, and highlights modern aesthetics.

SMARTIA P150 Urban ALUMIL’s constant aim is to meet every demand. Therefore, the company

ALUMIL Partition - P150 Urban The 3 new solutions for partition systems by ALUMIL, added to the existing series P100 & P200 standard, create a complete product range in the partition category. The high robustness that is ideal for constructions of large dimensions, the high sound reduction levels, as well as the elegant and minimal design, create a great combination for efficient and aesthetically upgraded partitioning of various indoor areas.

For more details on the product, contact:

ALUMIL SYSTEMS INDIA PVT. LTD. Office No. 901 /902, Plot No. 9, The Affairs, Palm Beach Rd, Sector 1 7 Sanpada, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra 400705 Email: info.asi@alumil.com Website: www.alumil.com/india Contact: +91 86550 45595

Product Watch

Schueco Launches Slimline Sliding System AS PD 70.NI • •

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S

chueco India recently launched its new panorama design slim sliding system AS PD 70.NI for the Indian market at the iDAC Expo, Mumbai. It is a high-quality system with a high degree of flexibility to meet architect and homeowner’s requirements in functionality and design. The sliding system can reach a maximum height of 4.5 metres.

Designed especially for private homes, the Schueco panorama design slim sliding system with its floor-to-ceiling glazing allows natural light to flood your home.

The system offers a combination of a slim interlock section and a concealed outer frame that creates an uninterrupted view from the inside to the outside. The new system meets the highest performance requirements and is easy to use.

Product Highlight: • Concealed outer frames for an allglass look • Integrated handle which adds to the sleek aesthetic design language • Maximum height of 4.5 mts. with individual vents as large as 3 mts in width

Unique feature - dynamic threshold

Interlock options of 19 mm & 25 mm Overlapping interlocks provide the same slim face width even for a two track four shutter typology.

Glass combinations from 14 mm to 40 mm High-performance (wind load, sound reduction, water & air tightness) Unique ‘dynamic threshold’ - smooth interplay of precision engineered components to provide a dynamic, barrier-free threshold which is available at the bottom. This mechanism is designed to operate ‘only when necessary’, making it child-safe and fool-proof Unique ‘dynamic side frame’ – applied technology to achieve a dynamic, flush outer frame on the sides with no visible cavities. This not only adds to the aesthetics but also prevents dust accumulation on the sides while the sliding system is left open.

“We are very excited to take the AS PD 70.NI to our architects, home-owners and fabrication partners. The feedback has been highly encouraging and this product launch strengthens our already wide portfolio of panorama design slim sliding system in the Indian market,” says Ayaz Danish, National Manager – Private Homes Business, Schueco India Private Limited. “We have already started working on various private home projects across India with this new system and are looking forward to creating many more outstanding buildings in the near future”, he added.

For more details on the product, contact:

Slim interlock section

Unique feature - dynamic side frame

Schueco India Private Limited Mumbai Email: info@schueco.in Website: www.schueco.in

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Product Watch

GEZE Window Technology - RWA Systems Why is Smoke and Heat Extraction So Important?

The smoke and heat extraction system (RWA) is classed under “preventive fire protection” and will save life in the event of a fire. During a fire, considerable quantities of combustion products such as smoke and fire gases, and heat energy are produced. The most important task of an RWA is to discharge the products of combustion from the building efficiently and quickly. Rooms and buildings without RWA fill up with toxic smoke gases within a very short time. The risk of people trying to escape and the rescue services is strongly increased in buildings without RWA since the lack of smoke and heat extraction leads to uncontrolled blazing fire, and the thick smoke makes active and passive rescue impossible.

Fire victims caused by direct contact with fire only occur very rarely. Almost 90% of fatal fire accidents are due to suffocation caused by smoke gases. “Fire victims are smoke victims”there are two reasons for this: • Lethal constituents in smoky gas • Corrosive components which burn the lung and airways when breathed in Large amounts of smoke gas rise on account of thermal buoyancy and fill the room or building with smoke. The high ambient temperature can lead to the building collapsing in worst cases.

1. Personal protection: keeping rescue routes smoke-free • Active rescue • Passive rescue • Localisation of the fire 2. Environmental protection: reducing damage to the environment • Minimising damage caused by fire extinguishing activities • Minimum use of extinguishing agents 3. Property protection: conserving the building structure • Support for fire fighting • Ventilation of the fire • Minimisation of the thermal load How Does Natural Smoke and Heat Extraction Work?

In the event of a fire, the RWA openings in the upper part of the building are opened. The hot ascending smoke gases can escape through these openings even during the initial phase.

The necessary fresh air openings in the lower part of the building assist this process by balancing out the required mass flow.

For this reason, RWA systems should always be planned in agreement with local fire protection authorities. Major requirements which buildings have to meet are defined in the fire protection concept.

Components of an RWA A GEZE RWA system is used for the daily ventilation of rooms and also for smoke extraction in the event of a fire.

Windows, smoke flaps or skylight domes are equipped with electromechanical drives which open and close the fresh and exhaust air areas. The control unit has two independent power supplies (mains and battery) which guarantee operation in any situation.

The functional safety of the cables and trigger mechanisms is monitored. In the event of a fire, the system is triggered quickly through automatic detectors (smoke or heat detectors), actuation via

Planning and Design of RWA The planning and design of RWA are subject to numerous European, national and regional regulations.

Conservation of the property structure is thus a major task for the RWA. This way people can escape from the building through their own efforts, and the rescue services can carry out active rescueevacuation of the building- for longer.

In summary, the following objectives are achieved by the use of smoke and heat extraction systems in buildings:

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Systematic scheme of an RWA System

Product Watch •

“Accessibility for all”: The electrical ventilation drive systems are convenient and easy to operate.

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Controlled ventilation: With the aid of control technology that can be configured to match the individual ventilation requirements in a building, these systems permit intelligent, coordinated and userindependent building ventilation.

GEZE window drives are excellently suitable for the automation of ventilation windows. If an RWA is used, its drives can of course also be used for daily ventilation.

RWA System from GEZE 1 = exhaust air system, 2 = fresh air system, 3 = ventilation signals, 4 = alarm signals, 5 = signal inputs, 6 = control center

an external fire alarm system (BMA) or manual actuation (RWA button). Natural smoke extraction ventilators (SHEVs) can be triggered depending on wind direction, so that in the event of a fire the building side away from the wind can be used for smoke dissipation. If the system is to be used for ventilation as well, further components will be required, such as vent switches, rain and

wind controls. For automatic ventilation control, contacts from temperature or CO2 sensors can be connected. There are several standard plus ventilation functions available.

Ventilation with GEZE Drives The aeration and ventilation with electromechanical drives has the following objectives:

Geze Powerchain

For more details on the product, contact:

RWA 105 NT

RWA 110 NT

RWA 100 NT

GEZE India Private Ltd. MF 2 & 3, Guindy Industrial Estate, Ekkattuthangal | Chennai 600 032 Email: office-india@geze.com Website: www.geze.in Contact: +91 44 4061 6900

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Product Watch

Hyundai Launches High-Tech, PVDF Coated Exterior Film - XE

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Hyundai L&C Exterior film

yundai L&C Exterior film department - a member of the Hyundai Department Store Group has launched its high-tech, PVDF coated exterior film called “XE”, which are in high demand in regions under high UV and are guaranteed for 20 years all over the world.

In addition, it started a new trend in the world with its PVC-free and completely PMMA-layered exterior films, called “SE” and offered its films with a 10-year

The highly sophisticated plant

warranty all over the world including India. Hyundai L&C would like to underline that these warranties are valid in all countries of the world. In other words, there is no such thing as the fact that the guarantee given for India is not given for countries such as the Middle East, Africa, and Australia, as some competitors do.

Heat Reflection Technology protects the window and door profile from excessive heat build-up. Transparent film and coloured base film with IR reflection pigment and additive make windows and doors remain tight even at strong solar irradiation and Hyundai L&C call their foils produced in this way as “Reflect Formula”.

The PVDF coated exterior films called “XE”, are guaranteed for 20 years all over the world

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This technology makes temperature down Reflect Formula acts as a protective shield for the entire component.

Pigments in the coloured film reflect infrared radiation, and extremely reduce the build-up of heat in the profile. Additionally, it protects not only the film itself but also the adhesive and the profile. Hyundai L&C continuously works to improve our advanced technology,

which is a special characteristic of our film. Reflect Formula ensures longer lives for windows and doors while reducing the heat absorption in windows and doors laminated with dark and woodgrains films. The high functional film will reduce profile and board aging and contribute to making extending window and door’s service lives. Finally, it improves energy efficiency.

As a result, the “XE” and “SE” series offered for sale in India are produced entirely with Reflect Formula only. In addition, in order for these top series foils to give excellent results, Hyundai L&C increase their bonding strength by priming the adhesion surfaces beforehand.

Hyundai exterior foils are proud to announce that they have successfully passed SKZ weathering colour fastness and PSM heat build-up tests and have RAL-GZ 716 certification.

Official India Distributor: Doctor Window Pvt. Ltd. Website: www.doctorwindow.com Email:support@doctorwindow.com Phone: +91 075054 44444

Product Watch

How does Virgo ACP Prevent the Spread of Fire? polyethylene. Magnesium hydroxide is a non-halogenated substance with a high decomposition temperature that retards the polyethylene transition from solid to plastic up to 360 degrees Celsius, its ignition point, by releasing a massive volume of water, which also helps to lower the temperature.

Prevents disintegration of the façade: Virgo ACPs do not come out of the façades when water is sprayed by fire-tanker spray hoses while fighting a fire, resulting in the collapse of the entire structure.

U

SPs of Virgo ACPs have made them the most recommended ACPs for preventing fire spread in modern buildings and are recognised for their fireretardant and fire-prevention capabilities.

during the fire while also preventing it from spreading further. Less smoke allows people to see more clearly, which helps rescuers and individuals fleeing the building.

The fire-retardant materials can drastically cut down on the losses by preventing the fire from spreading further, allowing for efficient rescue efforts to save lives and property.

Molten flaming droplets free: One of the most serious issues that arise during a fire is the molten flaming droplets that erupt from the panels or other materials, aggravating the situation by spreading the fire and adding to the misery of the imprisoned individuals. Virgo ACPs are clear of droplets and prevent the fire from spreading to nearby regions.

The following are the several USPs of Virgo ACPs that have made them the most recommended ACPs for preventing fire spread in modern buildings: Toxic gas-free: The Virgo ACPs do not emit toxic gasses and are therefore completely safe. The majority of deaths and other casualties in building fires are caused by hazardous gasses emitted during the fire.

These toxic fumes not only suffocate the surroundings by releasing compounds that are lethal to inhale but they also obscure vision, slowing rescue efforts and preventing people from fleeing the structures, as well as delaying the arrival of aid.

Suppresses smoke: The Virgo ACPs reduce the amount of smoke released

Produces less heat: The Virgo ACPs produce the least amount of heat during a fire, which helps to prevent the fire from spreading and to extinguish it quickly.

Noncombustible core: The Virgo ACPs firewall is made up of an ideal blend of Magnesium hydroxide (MDH) and

Low thermal conductivity: Virgo ACP’s low thermal conductivity, along with the best pyrolysis (chemical deterioration caused by fire), allows it to be employed as a fire-resistant structural element.

The Virgo ACPs adhere to all fire prevention laws and regulations, as well as other fire regulatory standards and specifications pertaining to the safety of buildings and structures. They’re composed of highquality fire-retardant material that’s been thoroughly inspected and tested for fire resistance as well as other qualities like strength, durability, and endurance.

Engineers, architects, interior designers, and construction contractors prefer Virgo ACP Panels since they are tough, strong, lightweight, safe, durable, and userfriendly, allowing them to be installed swiftly and securely without the need for much assistance or supervision.

For more details on the product, contact:

Virgo Group D-117, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-1, New Delhi – 110020 Email: acp@virgogroup.in Website: www.virgolam.com Contact: +91-11-47422222

WFM | MAY - JUNE 2022

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Product Watch

Eumax uPVC Windows & Doors Meeting the Fenestration Requirements of Modern Houses and Buildings

E

umax uPVC windows and doors have been nurturing the fenestration needs of contemporary homes and buildings spanning the length and breadth of the country with a great sense of responsibility over the years.

Eumax uPVC windows and doors are manufactured using the finest raw materials that are procured from credible sources from across the world. The manufacturing state-of-art infrastructure in Bangalore committed to extruding the finest quality of uPVC profiles is wellequipped with a modern laboratory ensuring every batch of its profiles is properly tested for superior performance and functional stability.

Eumax uPVC profiles have refined architectural elegance that enhances the appeal of new-age homes and buildings.

The wide range of uPVC profiles and sections allow for flexible and fluid design needs of windows and doors.

Eumax uPVC windows and doors are available as sliding windows and doors and casement or openable windows and doors. Various other options such as slide and fold doors, tilt and turn windows, ventilators, fixed windows and doors, and many other combinational and

Eumax uPVC windows and doors are manufactured using the finest raw materials

structurally diverse openings can be easily manufactured using Eumax uPVC profiles.

The range of sections of Eumax uPVC profiles in its sliding series can vary in width to complement the wall size of the building structure. They are available in 50 mm and 60 mm widths for two-track sliding windows, 80 mm and 88 mm widths for 2.5-track windows, and 108 mm width for a 3-track window.

In addition to the sliding series of windows, the casement series of windows have also been designed and manufactured for heavy duty performance with section wall thicknesses in excess of 2.5 mm.

Eumax laminated uPVC profiles are available in many colours

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Eumax laminated uPVC profiles and windows are manufactured using a double-stage hot glue application process that ensures that the window glamour and laminate life stays unaffected for years. They are presently available in four colours - Golden Oak, Walnut, Dark Oak and metallic grey. The high quality colour laminates imported from Germany are peel and warp resistant.

Eumax uPVC profiles and windows come with a life-long promise of assured peace and dignified elegance that will hold memories for generations in Indian homes and buildings.

EUREKA Windoor Systems Pvt Ltd # 311, 15th Cross, 5th Phase, 100 ft Road, Outer Ring Rd, J. P. Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560078 Website: www.eumaxupvc.com Email:customersupport@eurekaws.com Phone: +91 90366 00025

Brand Watch

“We Create the Frame”

G

EALAN Private Limited - a sister company of GEALAN Fenster-Systeme GmbH is one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of PVC-U profiles for windows and doors. The company aims to bring the latest innovations and technologies in PVC-U profile manufacturing to India. It draws on the immense experience of profile extrusion for more than 50 years of its parent organisation to bring innovative and class-leading solutions to the Indian market.

The company follows the ethos of GEALAN, i.e. Innovation Mit System to design and manufacture the most innovative profile systems with tropical climatic condition solutions for windows and doors. The GEALAN group of companies is one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of PVC-U profiles for window and door systems.

Across Europe, GEALAN employs more than 1,600 people and generated an annual turnover of more than EUR 325

million in 2021. Since 2014, GEALAN has been part of 1.25b euro’s family-run Holding Group based in Sendenhorst, Westphalia, Germany.

GEALAN–PRIMA (Simply beautiful windows) The GEALAN-PRIMA system defines a new design language for uPVC windows in architecture. More light and transparency from the large glass surfaces open up new design possibilities. On the inside, the new system convinces a flush view without disturbing joints. While on the outside, the right-angled overlap underscores the harmonious overall impression.

GEALAN–SUPRA (A Class of its Own) The new development in the 64 mm segment meets the highest demands on a profile in terms of design, performance, economy, and versatility.

This is how GEALAN-SUPRA sets new standards. The 64 Series of GEALAN SUPRA is a highly specialised series

used in making larger sliding windows and doors than usual.

GEALAN–SELECTA (The Innovation Sliding System) Living space is valuable, so it should be put to the best possible use. For the first time, GEALANSELECTA combines the space-saving convenience of sliding solutions with an extraordinarily compact design.

This is made possible through a synergy of newly developed hinge parts, innovative profile geometry, and optimised seals.

For more details on the brand, contact:

GEALAN PVT LTD 10th Floor, RMZ Latitude Commercial Bellary Road, Hebbal, Bengaluru KA- 560024 Email: contact@gealan.in Website: www.gealan.in Toll free: 1800 309 2526 WFM | MAY - JUNE 2022

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Brand Watch

EUROBOND Fire Retardant Series - A Game Changer in Fire Safety be used. Such products should be used that do not spread fire, do not emit toxic smoke, or burning droplets, and exhibit self-extinguishing behaviour.

DIVYAM SHAH

Whole-time Director, Eurobond

H

ow advanced is fire safety in India according to you?

The technology for fire-safe façades is available, but there is a lack of awareness and understanding of the same. We tend to make more economic decisions rather than fire safety-conscious decisions. But fortunately, things are changing very fast, and decision-makers are becoming more responsible and accountable. Testing and specification of the FR products should be done strictly to avoid fire hazards.

What kind of products should be used for fire-safe façades?

“Non-combustible” is always the best, but due to economic considerations at least “limited combustible” products should

Tell us about your fire-retardant Panels?

Under non-combustible Class A2, we have mineral core “EUROBOND FR A2” and under limited combustible Class B, we have mineral core “EUROBOND FR Plus”, comprehensive quality assurance by a global Fire test expert, Warrington fire Lab, UK. We also have advanced FR materials such as EUROBOND ACCP (Aluminium core composite panels) and EUROBOND Honeycomb Panels that are lightweight but strong and completely recyclable.

Is there a difference between a product tested and a product certified for fire performance?

In the case of a test certificate for a specific fire test, a sample is sent to the lab for analysis, and just that sample is examined and issued the test certificate.

In the case of FPC (Factory Production Certificate), is a comprehensive quality assurance plan called the CERTIFIER Program for a period of 3 to a 5-year agreement signed by the sponsor company and the Testing Agency (Exova Warrington Fire Lab). This means the Certification Agency governs the FR

production process through periodic audits and checks along with the reviews of the complete production method, process parameters, all production records of raw materials used, testing parameters decided, and criteria of acceptance records. The certificate shall be revoked if any quality discrepancies are found. Thus, users should always check for EN 13501 certifications rather than tests.

Chennai Metro – Eurobond FR Project Eurobond has been established in India for the past 20 years. Please tell us about your major milestones? What are your future expansion plans?

Our main focus always has been on technological advancements and product transformations. We follow the 3M mantra, which stands for Machine, Manpower, and Mindset. As a result, we were the first Indian ACP business to have an in-house Honeycomb manufacturing operation and the first ACP company in India to be listed on the National Stock Exchange. In the future, we want to be the global leaders for quality, innovation, and dynamism in the façade industry.

For more details on the company and its products,

Police Bhavan, Lucknow – Eurobond FR Project

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Euro Panel Products Limited Website: www.eurobondacp.com Email: sales@eurobondacp.com Phone: +91 8828238388

THE FIRE RETARDANT SQUAD

NON-COMBUSTIBLE

INNOVATIVE CORE

TESTED AND CERTIFIED

LOW TOXIC SMOKE

SUPERIOR STRENGTH

3 HOURS FIRE RATING

SAFER EVACUATIONS

EVERLASTING FINISH

WARRANTY

Follow us on

Brand Watch

Ozone Overseas Exhibits its wide Range of Products at the India Design Week 2022

The Anamorphic Display by Ozone at the exhibition witnessed a massive gathering.

It garnered visibility for the new range of Ozone products and created a top-of-themind recall in consumers’.

I

n a one-of-a-kind in the Hardware Industry in India, Ozone created its logo using its wide range of products across all verticals.

Showcasing the universe of Ozone in one frame while bringing out the beauty of each product in a cohesive manner, the Anamorphic Art can only be distinguished from one particular angle. Therefore, it keeps a specific viewing angle in mind, and the threads suspend the products at different heights, which contributes to the final creation. You might not understand with a glance at it, or it might appear to be just some gibberish.

Ozone provides a wide variety of solutions across safety, security, and hardware for residential and commercial establishments. Adding feathers to it is their newest concept ‘’Colors by Ozone,’’ which adds hues to the hardware and provides them in multiple colour options to choose from.

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ABHISHEK AGGARWAL President- Strategy, Ozone Group

Talking about the exhibition, Abhishek Aggarwal, President- Strategy, Ozone Group, said, “We are overwhelmed with the efforts’ response, and appreciation poured in. The idea was to create an experience that’ll stay in the visitors’ minds and will make an impact throughout. I’m glad that we could present our range in an entirely new concept from what people have seen before. We are also planning to introduce new concepts in the exhibitions and keep experimenting with the overall conceptualization.”

Founded in 1999 – Ozone Overseas – is a leading architectural hardware and security solutions company based in India.

Ozone has been a pioneer in offering technology-led products & solutions that are new age, innovative, and cost-effective.

Manufactured with high-quality materials and global design standards, every product has a unique style quotient paired with an uber-luxurious finish and sophisticated functionality to suit the urban lifestyle. The product categories include digital door locks, glass fittings, kitchen & furniture fittings, automatic doors, & digital safes.

With a global presence across 55 countries and 4 manufacturing facilities in India, it has a portfolio of more than 5000 products strategically categorized under 9 product brands.

For more information, please visit:

Ozone Overseas Pvt. Ltd. Website: www.ozone-india.com Email: customercare@ozone-india.com Phone: +91-9310012300

Brand Watch

KOEMMERLING uPVC Windows and Doors: Contributing Towards a Greener & Sustainable World Since windows and doors made with uPVC come with better insulation, there is less need to use heating and cooling devices for a longer duration, as there are no gaps in the possible leakage areas of windows and doors due to tight sealing and professional installation. To achieve better insulation, there are options of double or triple glazing. It decreases the requirement of switching on air conditioners or room heaters for longer duration which further helps in reducing electricity consumption and lower carbon emissions.

AMIR HASHMI

Chief Marketing & Sales Officer profine India Window Technology Pvt. Ltd.

K

OEMMERLING uPVC windows and doors are eco-friendly, energy-efficient and appealing choices that have always stood the test of time. The uPVC material has come a long way, and now homeowners trust uPVC system windows & doors to an extent that they choose them over other materials like wood available in the market.

KOEMMERLING uPVC windows and doors are highly energy-efficient. These system windows and doors have a low carbon footprint. Well, the carbon footprints are a measure of quantity of CO2 emitted by a household or an average person per the used resources. The more you use fuel and electricity in your house, the higher the carbon footprints.

The biggest advantage of uPVC system windows and doors is that they are 100% recyclable. All KOEMMERLING uPVC profiles are being produced with calcium-zinc stabilizers instead of lead, which makes uPVC profiles even more resistant to the most aggressive weather conditions.

Benefits of Using KOEMMERLING uPVC Windows & Doors: Dust and Sound Resistant: Due to the professional installation with excellent sealing and multiple glazing options of

the KOEMMERLING uPVC windows and doors, the environmental pollutants such as dust, sound and smoke remains out of your house. Hence, it reduces health hazards and also improves indoor air quality by maintaining an optimum indoor environment inside your homes.

Water Tightness: KOEMMERLING uPVC window and door systems have been successfully used in coastal and tropical environments without any detriment to the surface finish or performance with their joint tightness. KOEMMERLING uPVC profiles fulfil the demands of EN 12208 (Resistance to driving rain).

Long Life and Less Maintenance: Thanks to modern technology, KOEMMERLING uPVC window and door systems practically last for long service life. They do not involve any future maintenance costs. They do not rot, warp or corrode even in tropical and salty coastal climates.

KOEMMERLING uPVC windows and doors have gained commendable popularity in the Indian fenestration industry due to its utmost quality and multiple benefits including sustainability. KOEMMERLING is a brand of profine GmbH, Germany represented globally, as a leading manufacturer of uPVC profiles for window and door systems. With over 100 years of legacy “KOEMMERLING” is seen to be the premium and most trusted brand globally.

For more details on the company and its products:

Website: www.koemmerling.co.in Email: info.india@profine-group.com

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Brand Watch

SchlegelGiesse Changes Name to Tyman International common approach to best practices as one organisation and to do this whilst maintaining the operational agility we have in each business unit.

Giesse, Schlegel, Reguitti and Jatec will remain the customer-facing brands since they are well-known and highly valued by the market due to their history, quality and reliability.

PETER SANTO

President, Tyman International

S

ince 2016, Giesse, Schlegel, Reguitti and Jatec brands have been brought to you by SchlegelGiesse, which is the international division of the Tyman group, a global provider of engineered fenestration components and access solutions whose commercial network reaches clients in over one hundred countries in the world. The group is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

In 2022 SchlegelGiesse, the home of Giesse, Schlegel, Reguitti and Jatec brands will change its business name to Tyman International.

Our aim is to share the full range of our portfolio and services, develop a

CHIC, Concealed Hinge

Schlegel Seals Range Our product brands of Giesse, Schlegel, Reguitti and Jatec, of which we are immensely proud remain unchanged, but the organisation will change from SchlegelGiesse to Tyman International.

Why this Change Until now, Tyman has maintained a discreet presence. However, to take advantage of the capabilities we have across the group, we feel that now is the right time to present ourselves as Tyman.

Our aim is to share the full range of our portfolio and services, develop a common approach to best practices as one organisation and to do this whilst maintaining the operational agility we have in each business unit.

As a global provider of engineered fenestration components and access solutions, we feel the improved presence and visibility of Tyman will support the market offer of our business units with additional confidence that their offer is protected and enhanced by integrity, experience, and stability of the larger group.

What this Means for You In your day-to-day business with us nothing changes. We are still the same company, the same people, and our product brands remain unchanged.

You may already have noticed that, in the months leading up to this change, the name Tyman was becoming more evident in our documents and communications, and this will gradually increase in all our communication channels as we complete the transition from SchlegelGiesse to Tyman International.

For more details on the company and its products:

Supra 7 Handle Range

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Website: www.tyman-international.com

Brand Watch

Kin Long: Construction Hardware Expert Emphasising on Quality, Safety & Performance

INNOVATION AT CORE Every modern building carries a unique feature that creates it’s own identity. This identity makes the building stand out in the world of contemporary architecture’s infinite iterations. At Kin Long, we make this unique identity for each Project, repeatedly. It’s our constant innovation and technological progress, that helps us to sustain, excel and pioneer in the global market. A reflection of which can be seen in Dehradun Airport which bears the first Hybrid Façade System in India with Kin Long Hardware.

INDIA’S FIRST HYBRID FAÇADE SYSTEM The use of hybrid façade resulted in 40% cost reduction by using less steel as compared to conventional structure and provided an aesthetically pleasing view with higher glass to frame ratio.

With numerous hardware categories and never ending new ideas, we have

Chennai Airport

Cochin Airport

Mumbai Airport

driven forward trends that help to shape the multi functionality of today’s buildings. From anti seismic support systems to home automation, we are constantly working towards our purpose of becoming one stop solution of construction hardware at global level.

Delhi Airport

Kolkata Airport

For more details:

Kinlong Hardware (India) Pvt. Ltd. Website: http://en.kinlong.com/ Email: inhr@kinlong.com Phone: +91-9108990181 WFM | MAY - JUNE 2022

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Brand Watch

TAKA’s New Generation of Adhesives with Highest Weather Resistance the strength of adhesive decreases under atmospheric conditions. Therefore, besides using a foil with a 20-year guarantee, your adhesive must be suitable for this. Otherwise, you will endanger the reputation of your brand in the future.

One of the biggest reasons why today TAKA is the market leader and is used by leading companies in the sector that follow quality standards and have developed adhesive with the highest weather resistance.

T

AKA-WPR - the only company worldwide to combine the design and performance of wrapping machinery with high-quality state-ofthe-art adhesive technology, giving their customer worldwide unrivalled application know-how of the whole lamination process along with 360° service!

Taka’s modern advanced production units offer the best production capacity, perfect timing, and highest quality

As everyone knows that TAKA produces high-quality polyurethane HMPUR and polyester adhesives for interior and exterior applications. Three modern advanced production units offer the best production capacity, perfect timing, and highest quality ensuring the integration of the complete production process from the raw material to the final product.

TAKA has developed what today is the adhesive with the highest weathering resistance and subsequently the longest lifetime of all available Hot Melt Polyurethane Reactive adhesives on the market. Of course, the guarantee for the adhesives is as important as the guarantee for the foil. Today, many of us believe that the pull-up test is sufficient for the strength of the adhesive, but this is a grave misconception for all of us. Because of

There are different test methods of artificial weathering that have an accelerated aging effect on the foiled profile. These tests demonstrate the resistance of the compound to the most critical weather conditions, which are heat and humidity.

The most common test method is the so-called “hydrolysis test” applied by the German quality association GKFP. The test specimen is stored in an oven for 6 weeks at 70°C and 98% relative humidity. After this time the foil is peeled with a dynamometer.

If the strength of adhesion is still higher than 1.5 N/mm the test is passed successfully.

This aging test corresponds to around 10 years of the lifetime of an installed window in central Europe.

But TAKA’s new generation of adhesives overcomes this benchmark even after more than 12 weeks in the oven. Assuming that the degradation of the adhesion is linear, this demonstrates a lifetime of at least 20 years.

Official India Distributor: Doctor Window Pvt. Ltd. Website: www.doctorwindow.com Email:support@doctorwindow.com Phone: +91 075054 44444

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Type

Type

LPG 11 - 11 mm thickness

LSB 1

Lingel - Panzer - Glazing Recommended for P6B as per EN356

LINGEL SAFE BOX hardware to upgrade your existing Lingel window Recommended for RC2 and RC3 as per EN1627-30

LPG 14- 14 mm thickness

Lingel - Panzer - Glazing Recommended for P6B as per EN356

LPG 18 ULTRA - 18 mm thickness Lingel - Panzer - Glazing Recommended for P7B as per EN356

LPG 20- 20 mm thickness

LSB 2

LINGEL SAFE BOX hardware for your new state of art Lingel - security - window recommended for RC2 8 RC3 as per EN 1627-30

Lingel - Panzer - Glazing Recommended for P6B as per EN356

LPG 25- 25 mm thickness

Lingel - Panzer - Glazing Recommended for P6B as per EN356

LPG 25 ULTRA - 25 mm thickness Lingel - Panzer - Glazing Recommended for P7B as per EN356

LPG-X

Upgrade your existing Lingel security glazing to LPG performance

Lingel Provides Masterpiece Windows Where Every Component Is Merged To Perfection

UWDMA

® www.lingelwindows.com

181 mario@lingel.in

\. +91 9870273743

Buzz

Lingel Windows Expands its retail presence in India and Nepal Lingel has recently signed up with Channel partners in Alwar, Amritsar, Dibrugarh, Kolhapur, Palanpur, Jaipur, Rudrapur, Rewari, and Nepal. These channel partners will be catering to the ever-growing demand for superior quality customised solutions which Lingel provides from its sole manufacturing unit in Bhiwadi.

L

ingel Windows, a German brand, best known for its innovative products and use of technology is expanding its retail presence in Pan India through its channel partners. The Brand is already having its retail presence in all major and 2-tier cities.

Dr. h.c. Mario Schmidt, recently inaugurated the newest showroom at Meerut and on the occasion mentioned, “In our endeavour to grow and make our products available to our valuable customer it was essential to build our retails presence more strongly now. We thank all our channel partners and customers for trusting us. All our new channel partner experience centres will have state-of-

the-art products that will entice every one to add a modern and classy look to their projects. Through our channel partner network, we are already present in Indore, Jodhpur, Vijayawada, Hyderabad, Goa, and areas of the northeast and are hoping to expand further”.

Lingel has a wide range of products that caters to the needs of every home or office. Customers can find complete fenestration solutions in uPVC and Aluminium, security glass (LPG), roller shutter, venetian blinds, Skylights, glass conservatories, window sill, and much more. The brand also has expertise in various shapes of window solutions and designer doors.

aluplast India’s Managing Director – Faraz Aqil Takes Over New Position of Strategic Advisor

a

luplast India, a leading producer of global uPVC window profile systems, has announced that Faraz Aqil, Managing Director, will be taking over a position as strategic advisor on the Board of Directors, and consequently giving up his current role as Managing Director.

“Faraz Aqil was brought in to instil a change management philosophy that we had wanted to implement in India, at the end of which he would step up to a board level role. Whilst we had considered extending this period, it was mutually decided to stick to the original timeline,” said Patrick Seitz, co-owner at the aluplast Group.

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together, and I know that he will continue to be an asset for us at board level”.

Babak Golriz, Head of Expanding Markets for the aluplast Group stated “ The team at aluplast India and I have worked closely with Faraz on a daily basis from the time he joined, and we hold the utmost respect for him as a person as well as his leadership and management style. Even though we are ending one chapter, we are looking forward to start another

“It has been an honour working with aluplast to implement a specific set of goals over the last 18 months,” said Faraz Aqil. “Over the past several months, the team at aluplast India and I have talked at lengths about the progress we have made on many fronts. We are now coming to the milestone of making new major investments into the firm, to take it into the next decade in order to firmly establish us as the premium window system producer for coloured windows & doors. We have mutually reached the decision that this was the right time for the change.”

www.wfmmedia.com

www.wfmmedia.com Volume 8 | Issue 1 | ` 150 January - February 2022

SHAPING TOMORROW’S FAÇADES Designs, Materials & Technologies for Innovative Future Façades & Fenestrations Face to Face

Ar. Karan Grover & Ar. Ishan Grover Karan Grover & Associates (KGA)

Industry Speaks

Faraz Aqil Managing Director, aluplast India Private Ltd

Façades for High-Performance Buildings

Ashish K Jain Partner - AEON Integrated Building Design Consultants LLP

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WFM | MAY - JUNE 2022

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