Activities
The Laboratory carries out the following activities:
- commercial activities
- experimental research in the field of fire
- education in the field of fire.
Commercial activities
Laboratory's commercial activities consists of:
- fire resistance testing,
- extended application reporting according to EN 15725 ans specific extended application standards,
- classification reporting according to EN 13501-2.
The Laboratory offers specific services to its customers, as guidance in fire regulation, configuration of test specimen according to the various normative requirements, etc.
Our commercial testing activities mainly cover the following standard methods.
Experimental research in the field of fire
Some examples of experimental research in which the Laboratory has participated are illustrated below.
CSTC (since 2005)
- 2005-2006 - 7 tests on load-bearing walls: validation of different implementations (clay block walls vs. aggregate concrete, different thicknesses, rectified blocks vs. unrectified, masonry with traditional mortars vs glue mortars)
- 2010 - Test on 4 modules: implementation of solutions for joining ceilings, floors and walls in wooden frame houses
- 2010 - Test on 36 UHPC (ultra-high performance concrete) cylindrical specimens suspended from their upper face to an aerated concrete roofing slab
- 2016 - Test on 6 facade modules made of wooden frames, which openings are filled with different solid panels and insulations, and fixed in front of a supporting floor
- 2016 - Test on a load-bearing wall made of a wooden structure, braced by panels placed on the non-exposed fire side, and filled with a rockwool insulation
PRECOBEAM (2009)
SPF INTERIEUR (2011)
The topic of this research was the determination of the factor m.
The Basic Standards for fire prevention classify industrial buildings according to the characteristic fire load qfi,d [MJ/m²], which is the total heat load per unit area at the ground qfi,k [MJ/m²] corrected by a combustion factor m [dimensionless], a value between zero and one, which takes into account the total or partial combustion of materials, i.e. qfi,d = qfi,k . m.
ATTEL (2011)
The issue of this research was performance-Based approaches for high strength tubular columns and connections during earthquake and fire loadings.
The ATTEL project aims at developing performance-based design approaches where the capacity design of steel grades up to S690 and S700MC – widely used in seismic engineering to avoid brittle failure and ensure ductile behaviour – will be extended to high strength steel circular hollow section structures to prevent failure and collapse under both earthquake and fire loading.
LOCAL FIRES (2012)
Normally structures are designed to resist fully developed compartment fires for a specified time. In large compartments fully developed compartment fires are, however, unlikely to occur. Relatively large local fires which do not flashover the compartment may, however, develop and threaten e.g. a steel column. The purpose of the experiments is to characterize the thermal exposure levels by radiation and convection of a column surrounded by liquid pool fires by measurements with thermocouples and heat flux meter.
FIDESC4 (2012)
FIDESC4 stands for Fire Designed Structure with Class 4.
LOCAFI (2013)