To read this content please select one of the options below:

Design criteria for insulation materials applied in timber frame assemblies

Mattia Tiso (Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia)
Alar Just (Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia)

Journal of Structural Fire Engineering

ISSN: 2040-2317

Article publication date: 14 November 2017

Issue publication date: 11 October 2018

241

Abstract

Purpose

Insulation materials’ contribution to the fire resistance of timber frame assemblies may vary considerably. At present, Eurocode 5 provides a model for fire design of the load-bearing function of timber frame assemblies with cavities completely filled with stone wool. Very little is known about the fire protection provided by other insulation materials. An improved design model which has the potential to consider the contribution of any insulation material has been introduced by the authors. This paper aims to analyze the parameters that describe in a universal way the protection against the charring given by different insulations not included in Eurocode 5.

Design/methodology/approach

A series of model-scale furnace tests of floor specimens for three different insulation materials were carried out. An analysis on the charring depth of the residual cross-sections was conducted by means of a resistograph device.

Findings

The study explains the criteria and procedure followed to derive the coefficients for the improved design model for three insulations involved in the study.

Originality/value

This research study involves a large experimental work which forms the basis of the proposed design model. This study presents an important step for fire resistance calculations of timber frame assemblies.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the network of COST Action FP1404 for the contribution of the Task Group 5 within the Working Group 2 “Structural Elements made of bio-based building materials and detailing”. This work was supported by the Estonian Research Council grant PUT 794.

Citation

Tiso, M. and Just, A. (2018), "Design criteria for insulation materials applied in timber frame assemblies", Journal of Structural Fire Engineering, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 252-263. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSFE-01-2017-0015

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles