What is the building design fire code?

Feb 17, 2023 | news


When designing a building, it is necessary to correctly determine the fire resistance rating, building area, and the number of floors of the building, and reasonably arrange fire protection isolation. When designing factories and warehouses, the degree of fire hazard in the production process and the nature of the stored materials must be considered. When designing civil buildings, the corresponding fire resistance ratings must be determined based on the nature of their use and the number of people they can accommodate. If combustible materials are used for the main components of the building, the number of floors should not be too high, and the area should not be too large. However, due to special needs, the building area can be appropriately increased after installing fireproof partitions. Factory buildings and warehouses that are prone to fire and explosion should generally be one-story buildings. When designing a building, the necessary fire separation distance must be determined according to the fire resistance rating of the building and surrounding buildings, the nature of use, etc. Due to the constraints of production, geography, and other conditions, after adopting partitions such as firewalls, the fire separation distance can be appropriately reduced or not considered.


To effectively prevent the expansion and spread of fire, when designing buildings, there should be appropriate precautions for factories, warehouses, and other buildings with high fire hazards, as well as rooms and places that are prone to heavy losses and spread inside buildings. Fire separation.


To quickly and safely evacuate people and materials and reduce fire losses in the event of a fire, sufficient safety exits must be designed according to specific conditions when designing buildings.


When carrying out urban planning and designing industrial and civil buildings, sufficient fire-water consumption must be considered and designed at the same time.


To extinguish fires conveniently and in a timely and effective manner, fire stations must be arranged reasonably during urban planning; Foam Equipment in industrial enterprises and residential areas, fire truck passages must be properly arranged to ensure that fire vehicles can quickly reach the fire extinguishing location when a fire occurs.


Production workshops and warehouses with a greater risk of explosion should adopt roofs that are easy to fall off when subjected to explosion waves or set up sufficient pressure relief areas, to reduce casualties and property losses in the event of an explosion.


For rooms with combustible gas and dust explosion hazards, the ventilation must be enhanced so that they do not reach the explosive concentration; the air in the room should not be recycled if it contains combustible and explosive dust or gas; Ventilation ducts, ventilator rooms, dust filters, and other fittings for ventilation equipment, and all ventilation ducts in explosive and fire-prone rooms shall be of non-combustible materials.


When building or rebuilding industrial enterprises, residential areas, and industrial and civil buildings, all construction units and design units should design and construct to the above regulations. Local public security organs should participate in design review and acceptance.

Fire Alarm in Warehouse


Related Terms of Fire Protection in Architectural Design

  1. High-rise building
    Residential buildings with a building height greater than 27m and non-single-story factories, warehouses, and other civil buildings with a building height greater than 24m. (Note: The calculation of building height should comply with the provisions of Appendix A of this code.)
  2. Podium
    Outside the projected range of the main body of a high-rise building, ancillary buildings that are connected to the main body of the building and whose building height is not greater than 24m.
  3. Important public building
    Public buildings where a fire may cause heavy casualties, property damage, and serious social impact.
  4. Commercial facilities
    Stores, post offices, savings offices, barbershops, and other small commercial premises are set up on the first floor or the first and second floors of residential buildings, where the building area of each partition unit is not greater than 300m².
  5. High rack storage
    Shelf warehouses with a shelf height greater than 7m and using mechanized operations or automatic control.
  6. Semi-basement
    The average height of the room ground below the outdoor design ground is greater than 1/3 and not greater than 1/2 of the average clear height of the room.
  7. Basement
    The average height of the room ground below the outdoor design ground is greater than 1/2 of the average clear height of the room.
  8. Open flame location
    Fixed places with exposed flames or red hot surfaces indoors and outdoors (except for stoves, induction cookers, etc. in civil buildings).
  9. Sparking site
    A chimney with flying flames or a fixed location for outdoor grinding, electric welding, gas welding, gas cutting, etc.
  10. Fire resistance rating
    Under standard fire test conditions, the time, expressed in hours, from the time a building component, fitting, or structure is exposed to fire to the time it loses its load-bearing capacity, integrity, or insulation.
  11. Fire partition wall
    Non-combustible walls in buildings that prevent fire from spreading to adjacent areas and whose fire resistance rating are not lower than the specified requirements.
  12. Firewall firewall
    Non-combustible walls that prevent fire from spreading to adjacent buildings or adjacent horizontal fire compartments and whose fire resistance rating is not less than 3.00h.
  13. Refuge floor (room)
    A floor (room) in a building that is used for people to temporarily avoid the hazards of fire and smoke.
  14. Safety exit
    Entrances and exits of stairwells and outdoor stairs for the safe evacuation of personnel or exits directly leading to indoor and outdoor safe areas.
  15. Enclosed staircase
    Install a door at the entrance of the stairwell to prevent smoke and heat from the fire from entering the stairwell.
  16. Smoke-proof staircase
    Set up a smoke-proof front room, open balcony or concave corridor (collectively referred to as the front room) and other facilities at the entrance of the stairwell, and the doors leading to the front room and the stairwell are all fire doors to prevent the smoke and heat of the fire from entering the stairwell.
  17. Exit passageway
    Take anti-smoke measures and set up fire partition walls with a fire-resistance rating of not less than 3.00h on both sides, which are used for the safe passage of personnel to the outdoor walkway.
  18. flash point
    Under specified test conditions, the mixture of vapor and air formed on the surface of a flammable liquid or solid, the lowest temperature of the liquid or solid that can flash when exposed to an ignition source (measured by the closed-cup method).
  19. Lower explosion limit
    The lowest concentration at which a mixture of flammable vapor, gas, or dust and air can explode when exposed to an ignition source.
  20. Boil-over oil
    Water-containing oils produce heat waves when burned.
  21. Fire separation distance
    It is the distance between fire-fighting buildings to prevent fire from igniting adjacent buildings within a certain period and to facilitate fire fighting.
    Note: The calculation method of the fire separation distance shall comply with the provisions of Appendix B of this code.
  22. Fire compartment
    Local space is separated by firewalls, floor slabs, and other fireproof separation facilities inside the building, which can prevent the fire from spreading to the rest of the same building within a certain period.
  23. Full water spout
    From the nozzle of the water gun to the point where 90% of the water column of the jet passes through a round hole with a diameter of 380mm.
    Determinants of Fire Protection in Building Design
    Factory and Warehouse
  24. Factory buildings and warehouses are areas where a large number of people work or store a large number of items. Therefore, it is necessary to subdivide the fire protection level of the site to achieve different fire protection effects.
  25. The functionality of factories and warehouses (storage of textiles, oil, natural gas, medicine, etc.) These places store flammable and explosive items, so their safety level should be improved in architectural design.
  26. In addition, safety classification should be carried out according to factors such as factory building, warehouse area, and story height. For example, the larger the site, the more items are stored, the larger the scale of the fire that can be caused, and the higher the story height, the difficulty of rescue that may cause fire is also greater The higher, so these situations should also improve the safety level of the design fire protection.
  27. Plants with explosion hazards should be set up independently and should be open or semi-open. Its load-bearing structure should adopt reinforced concrete or steel frame and bent frame structure. In addition, pressure relief facilities should be set up in places with explosion hazards. The pressure relief facilities should use light roof panels, light walls, doors, and windows that are easy to release pressure, etc., and safety glass that will not produce sharp fragments during explosions should be used. Material. The setting of pressure relief facilities should avoid crowded places and main traffic roads, and should be close to places with explosion hazards. The mass of lightweight roof panels and walls used as pressure relief facilities should not be greater than 60kg/m². The pressure relief facilities on the roof shall take measures to prevent the accumulation of ice and snow.
  28. The safety exits of workshops and warehouses should be scattered. For each fire compartment or each floor of a fire compartment, the horizontal distance between the nearest edges of two adjacent safety exits shall not be less than 5m. For each fire compartment or each floor within a fire compartment, the number of safety exits shall be calculated and determined, and shall not be less than 2; when the following conditions are met, one safety exit may be set
    Civil building
  29. In the general layout, the location of the building, the fire distance, the fire lane, and the fire water source should be reasonably determined.
  30. It is necessary to set fire ratings and fire compartments according to different story heights. (When a firewall is set between the podium and the main body of the high-rise building, the fire compartment of the podium can be determined according to the requirements of single and multi-story buildings; Area superposition calculation; the atrium corridor in the high-rise building should be equipped with automatic sprinkler system and automatic fire alarm system; the atrium should be equipped with smoke exhaust facilities, and combustible materials should not be arranged in the atrium; fire compartments should be separated by firewalls, which is indeed difficult When it is used, it can be separated by fire separation facilities such as fire shutters.)
  31. When the higher side of the adjacent outer wall of two buildings is a firewall, or the outer wall within 15m above and below the roof of an adjacent lower building with Class I or Class II fire resistance is a firewall, the fire separation distance is not limited.
  32. If the exterior wall on either side of adjacent two adjacent buildings with Class I and Class II fire resistance of the same height is a firewall, and the fire resistance rating of the roof is not less than 1.00h, the fire separation distance is not limited.
  33. Civil buildings should be properly equipped with safe evacuation and refuge facilities according to their building height, scale, use function, fire resistance level, and other factors. The location, quantity, and width of safety exits and evacuation doors and the form of evacuation stairwells shall meet the requirements for the safe evacuation of personnel.
    Firewall
  34. The firewall should be directly installed on the foundation of the building or the load-bearing structures such as frames and beams. The fire-resistance rating of frames, beams, and other load-bearing structures should not be lower than that of the firewall.
  35. The firewall shall be cut off from the base of the floor to the base of the beam, floor, or roof. When the fire resistance rating of the roof load-bearing structure and roof panel of a high-rise factory building (warehouse) is lower than 1.00h, and the fire resistance rating of the roof load-bearing structure and roof panel of other buildings is lower than 0.50h, the firewall shall be higher than the roof by more than 0.5m
  36. The structure of the firewall should be able to prevent the firewall from collapsing when the roof trusses, beams, floor slabs, etc. on either side of the firewall are damaged by fire.
    Firefighting and rescue facilities
  37. The roads in the fire lane block should consider the passage of fire trucks, and the distance between the road centerlines should not be greater than 160m.
  38. The following buildings should be equipped with fire elevators: residential buildings with a building height greater than 33m; high-rise public buildings and building heights greater than 32m; underground or semi-basement buildings, other underground or semi-underground buildings with a buried depth greater than 10m and a total construction area greater than 3000m² (room).
  39. Fire lifts should be installed in different fire compartments, and each fire compartment should not be less than one
    The setting of fire fighting facilities
  40. The setting of fire-fighting water supply and fire-fighting facilities should be comprehensively determined according to the purpose and importance of the building, fire risk, fire characteristics, and environmental conditions.
  41. Towns (including residential areas, commercial areas, development areas, industrial areas, etc.) should set up municipal fire hydrant systems along streets where fire trucks can pass. Outdoor fire hydrant systems should be installed around civil buildings, workshops, warehouses, storage tanks (areas), and storage yards. An outdoor fire hydrant system shall be installed on the roof used for fire rescue and parking of fire trucks.
  42. Automatic sprinkler system, water spray fire extinguishing system, foam fire extinguishing system, and fixed fire extinguishing system, as well as the indoor fire hydrant water supply system of the following buildings should be equipped with fire pump connectors (1. Public buildings with more than 5 floors; 2. Factory buildings or warehouses with more than 4 floors; 3. Other high-rise buildings; 4. Underground buildings (rooms) with more than 2 floors or a building area greater than 10,000m²).
    Automatic fire alarm system
  43. The following buildings or places should be equipped with automatic fire alarm systems: (1. Factory buildings for shoemaking, clothing, toys, electronics, and other similar purposes with a building area of any floor greater than 1500m² or a total building area greater than 3000m²; 2. Each building occupies Warehouses of cotton, wool, silk, hemp, chemical fiber, and their products with a floor area of more than 1000m², cigarette warehouses with a floor area of more than 500m² or a total construction area of more than 1000m²; Stores, exhibitions, finance, trade and finance, passenger and freight and other similar buildings, underground or semi-underground stores with a total construction area greater than 500m²; 5. Places such as large and medium-sized kindergartens for children, and care facilities for the elderly 6. Residential buildings with a building height greater than 100m)