Interim Report for Project Entitled:
Evaluate Draft-stopping Performance within Type V Combustible Concealed
Attic Space
Performance Period: 1/6/2014 – 6/30/2014
Submitted on
March 17, 2014
Presented to the
Florida Building
Commission
State of Florida
Department of Business and Professional Regulation
by
Forrest J. Masters,
Ph.D., P.E., masters@ce.ufl.edu, (352) 392-9537 x 1505, Principal Investigator
Kurtis R. Gurley,
Ph.D., kgurl@ce.ufl.edu, (352) 392-9537 x 1508
David O. Prevatt,
Ph.D., P.E. (MA), dprev@ce.ufl.edu, (352) 392-9537 x 1498
Designated Project Leader: Kurtis R. Gurley
Engineering School
for Sustainable Infrastructure & Environment
Table of Contents
Table
of Contents
1. Applicable Sections
of the Code. 1
2. Executive Summary. 1
2.1. Description of
Issues. 1
2.2. Recommendations
for the Code. 1
3. Scope of Work. 1
4. Deliverables. 2
5. Detailed Project
Description. 2
6. References. 2
7. Appendices. 2
IBC 504, IBC 718
Tony
Apfelbeck agreed to serve as the Building Fire TAC point of contact. The
research portion of the scope of work is to be conducted by a third party
vendor with building fire expertise. UF sent a solicitation to individuals and
engineering firms specializing in fire related building performance and code
issues. This resulted in the selection of a vendor. UF is currently creating a
purchase order, upon which the vendor will be named and services will commence.
Details are provided in Section 5 of this report. At this time the project is
on schedule and within budget.
·
Under the IBC, four story
buildings with combustible concealed attic space (type V buildings) are
permitted with no sprinkler system in the attic. Five stories are permitted in
a pedestal type arrangement. Unsprinkled concealed combustible attic spaces did
not exceed the three story limitation in the SBC.
·
Attic fire control with
manual suppression is more difficult in taller buildings.
·
Draft stopping is the
primary means of controlling fire spread in a type V unsprinklered attic.
·
The fire performance of the
code specified attic draft stopping materials and installations should be
reviewed to see if it is appropriately mitigating risk.
No
recommendations at this stage
·
Literature review and data gathering
o
Existing IBC code provisions on attic draft stopping
o
History of attic draft stopping in SBCCI and ICC
o
Current non-IBC
approaches to fire confinement in
concealed
combustible attic
space (non-US codes)
o
Review justification (with respect
to fire containment) for allowing increased height of
type V buildings in IBC
o
Technical literature on fire testing
of draft stopping materials
and assemblies
o
Acquire incident
data regarding attic fires in type V buildings Document challenges for manual attic fire suppression in type V buildings
·
Conduct a field assessment
of attic draft stopping
installations in existing type V buildings
·
Gap assessment: Determine if additional information is required to discern whether changes are necessary to the existing IBC attic draft stopping provisions.
o
If no additional information is required, develop either a
code change for submission, or a support/justification document for the current code
o
If additional information is required, recommend a methodology for a phase II study
to fill the information
gaps identified. Phase II would be initiated
in the following fiscal year
·
Produce a report that documents
the approach and explains the results and implications for the
Code
·
Present report/findings to the Commission’s Technical Advisory Committee and interest groups for review and feedback
·
A report providing
technical information on the problem background, results and implications to the Code submitted to the Program
Manager by June 15, 2014
·
A proposed scope of work for 2014-2015 funding cycle, if a phase II is warranted
·
A breakdown of the number of hours or partial hours, in increments of fifteen (15) minutes,
of work performed and a brief description of the work performed. The Contractor
agrees to provide any additional documentation requested by the Department to satisfy audit requirements
UF
created a solicitation with the scope of work, deliverables and budget cap. The
solicitation was sent to individuals and engineering firms specializing in fire
related building performance and code issues. This produced five submissions
from qualified fire engineering firms. A submission evaluation committee was
formed consisting of Kurt Gurley, Tony Apfelbeck, Mo Madani, Bryan Holland
(MCP, Building Official City of North Port), and Chris Weir (Deputy Chief, City
of Port Orange, Florida Fire Chief’s Association). The committee members had a
teleconference on February 28th to discuss the five submissions and
select one as the vendor. Kurt Gurley contacted the selected vendor to clarify
two issues, which were resolved to the committee’s satisfaction. UF is now in
the process of creating a purchase order for this vendor. When the PO is
finalized, the vendor will initiate the scope of work. The vendor will be named
when the PO is issued.
To be determined by the vendor and provided in the final report.
None at this stage