Grant: Industrial Research Chairs

The introduction of objective-based codes in Canada in 2005 has encouraged building fire safety designers to seek solutions that are safe and cost effective by using engineering tools to demonstrate to the authorities that their designs meet the established objectives. This is a significant departure from designing buildings using the traditional prescriptive based codes where a minimum level of engineering was required. Objective based-codes provided new opportunities for the wood industry as they can now move into non-traditional markets for wood construction that include non-residential buildings as well as mid-rise buildings. The research program of the Industrial Research Chair in Fire Safety Engineering addresses the need of not only the wood industry but also of all stakeholders of fire safety in Canada for the development and validation of computer models and other design tools and technologies that can be used to produce safe and cost-effective fire safety designs. Tools such as the fire risk model being developed by the Chair, validated using experimental data from tests included in the proposal, will serve to predict the fire safety performance of light-frame wood buildings, as well as other buildings constructed in a performance-based code environment. Part of the proposed research is directed at finding solutions to address the issue of fire spread to adjacent properties through the introduction of fire suppression and radiation attenuation technologies. The proposal also includes the development and delivery of graduate level courses and short courses directed at fire safety practitioners so that they will gain the necessary skills to be able to use the design tools effectively.