Development of fire-safety wooden multi-story building

Abstract

With increasing awareness of environmental conservation in recent years, building with wood has been gaining popularity worldwide. Technological improvements conerning wood industry and building construction in the 20th century have been making it possible to realize large dimensional building with wood. However, middle-to-high rise building with wood in urban area has not gained popularity enough. The major reason comes from problems of fire protection, due to the material characteristics and regulations. Proper design concepts from aspects considering fire protection are indispensable. In other words, developments of fire-safety measure expand possibilites for use of wood as a building material. This thesis is intended to study the feasibility of wooden multi-story building in urban area by means of considering the issue of fire safety. Concepts of fire safety design are studied from the three viewpoints: fire-resistive structure, smoke control and evacuation. The study of fire-resistive structure includes study of fire protection measures and a coneptual proposal. The study of smoke control and evacuation also includes a conceptual proposal. Applying the concepts described above, an example of building is designed as a prototype building. The project includes proposals of fire-resistive structure, smoke control and safe evacuation. And finally, structural calculation is carried out in order to prove briefly that the proposal of the struture is realizable.<br />