Fire Engineering
FIRE ENGINEERING BROADENS THE RANGE OF DESIGN SOLUTIONS AVAILABLE USING FIRST-PRINCIPLES KNOWLEDGE AND DATA-DRIVEN INSIGHTS.
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Building codes offer a prescriptive solution for meeting life safety goals for conventional buildings and provide a critical baseline for a safe design. However, they can also limit opportunities for innovation if treated as purely a prescriptive checklist that a team cannot deviate from.
Where warranted, we apply fire engineering principles to meet your architectural, sustainability, and economic goals through alternative solutions while working to communicate and mitigate approvals risks.
Our fire engineering team works with you from new to renew to identify the approach to building code compliance for your vision, and where opportunities for innovation exist.
Our designs are then developed and quantified using smoke and fire modelling, evacuation modelling, and structural fire engineering. We use the latest software where complex models are required to demonstrate performance, and we invest heavily in linking these analytical tools to our BIM to make this process efficient.
SPECIALTY EXPERTISE
Spaces are designed to serve and enable a purpose, with occupant safety being a guaranteed minimum. Building codes are the first step to ensuring this safety by prescribing various measures for a range of occupancies and building types.
PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS
Peel Memorial Centre for Integrated Health and Wellness
BRAMPTON, ON
Garth Worthington School GLT Stair Variance
EDMONTON, AB
MacKimmie Block & Tower Redevelopment
CALGARY, AB
24 Crimscott Street
LONDON, UK
Lendrum Redevelopment, Protection of Adjacent Buildings
EDMONTON, AB
Pig Patch House
NORFOLK, UK
Union Station Enhancement Project (USEP)
TORONTO, ON
With a triple bottom line focus, we strive to create a built environment that is environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable.
Mass timber is one of the most promising construction solutions to addressing the current climate emergency. However, current codes don’t always allow the height and size that is desired. Fire engineering allows us to work with local authorities to overcome these code restrictions and ensure mass timber buildings are realized.
Through a holistic approach to designing structural elements and optimizing material selection and quantity, fire engineering allows us to minimize the use of harmful carbon- and chemical-intensive spray fireproofing while still meeting or exceeding performance requirements.
GARTH WORTHINGTON SCHOOL
EDMONTON, AB
BUILDING CODE CONSULTING
Every building needs to meet the life safety requirements of the code, either prescriptively or through alternative solutions that provide the same level of performance. We work with teams to identify the approach to building code compliance, provide options for consideration where designs do not meet code, and work with local AHJs to develop alternative solutions that are required to meet project goals. Our team provides: · Building Code & Fire Code Consulting · Building Condition Assessments · Drawing Reviews · Accessibility · Code Compliance Drawings
TIMBER BUILDINGS
We approach the fire design of timber buildings from a holistic perspective, combining structural fire engineering, egress design, and fire modelling to demonstrate that complex timber buildings are safe. Our analytical approach to fire safety in timber buildings adds strength to alternative solutions in jurisdictions where the timber building is beyond code limits.
FIRE & SMOKE MODELLING
We determine smoke movement and temperature development within building environments using equations, zone models, and computational fluid dynamics. Fire modelling enables us to determine temperatures to use in structural fire design, quantify tenability that informs egress design, and assess or design smoke control systems.
PEDESTRIAN & EVACUATION MODELLING
By applying first-principles knowledge about how people behave during fire scenarios and how they will interact with their surroundings, we design intelligent egress routes for buildings. Where exact travel distances from the prescriptive clauses of the code are forcing a design decision, tools such as evacuation modelling can be used to demonstrate the performance of an egress design and propose an alternative solution.
STRUCTURAL FIRE ENGINEERING
We perform structural calculations to demonstrate load-carrying capacity during fire scenarios with reduced or eliminated fire protection, in both new and existing buildings. We perform analyses of critical structural members to demonstrate stability and progressive collapse mitigation for fire events, including key structural elements. Our experience can also be applied to prescriptive fire protection strategies to ensure the most efficient assemblies are used to improve economy and constructability.
CONSTRUCTION FIRE MITIGATION
Using our first-principles knowledge of fire engineering and our understanding of codes and standards, we work with constructors to ensure their construction fire mitigation plans are up-to-date and address all risks. We provide engineered solutions to adjacent property protection (NFPA-80A) to quantify risk and provide optimized solutions.
INVESTIGATION & FORENSICS
Despite best efforts during design, construction, and operation, fires still occur. Entuitive has experience with the investigation and repair of structures damaged by fire, ranging from small, existing parking garages to multimillion-dollar P3 projects under construction. Our emphasis is on efficiently assessing the scope of structural repair required and ensuring the building can be back in service as quickly as possible. We work with contractors, insurance representatives, and inspection and testing agencies to get the client to the finish line.
