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Most buildings follow well established design approaches that allow to translate fire safe design into a logical process that generally delivers acceptable outcomes in the event of a fire. The fire safety strategy involves detection and alarm for early warning of occupants, guided and effective egress, control of the fire growth by means of flammability requirements, compartmentation and fire suppression systems and the guarantee that the structure will support all these measures. Finally, the fire service acts as the redundancy to the building fire safety strategy. The characteristics of these building blocks can change depending on the environment in which they are being used and the way they are implemented can also vary, nevertheless, most environments use these building blocks to construct a solution to the fire safety problem. Simple problems might not need certain building block, nevertheless they are all available to the designer. Complex infrastructure is characterized by situations in which certain building blocks cannot be used. This infrastructure then needs a completely different approach to fire safety. In some cases, proven solutions have resulted in fire safety strategies that have become mainstream despite their uniqueness. This is the case of transport systems such as aircraft or spacecraft, where the impossibility of evacuation results in a strategy that relies fully on flammability control. This presentation addresses the design process of unique and complex infrastructure and presents a methodology to identify the unavailable building blocks and to construct a strategy that focuses on delivering adequate safety objectives in the absence of all the commonly used tools.
Professor José L. Torero is Professor Civil Engineering and Head of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at University College London. He works in the field of fire safety where he specializes in complex environments such as complex urban environments, novel architectures, new construction materials, critical infrastructure, aircraft and spacecraft.
José is a Chartered Engineer (UK), a Registered Professional Engineer in Queensland, a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK), The Royal Society of Edinburgh (UK), The Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (USA), the Institution of Fire Engineers (UK) and the Institution of Civil Engineers (UK).