Essay On Trusses

At the time of the MGM Grand Fire, it was not required that fire department personnel had to be part of the building construction plan review process. The fire department is now largely involved in the construction and plan review process before a building is built. Also, construction materials used are more fire resistant. Ventilation systems have also been improved, and are very helpful in removing the smoke, rather than allowing it to make its way to upper floors of a high rise structure, which was a large cause of loss of life in the MGM Grand fire due to smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning.

After the fire, people had opened their eyes to workplace safety. This fire angered many citizens and felt that something needed to be done about it. As time went on, more people had recognized this issue. Workplace safety was improved, just by adding exits, fire drills, fire alarms, and working, steady fire escapes. The whole

Steel frame structures are made as the name suggest from steel, the material is strong and flexible. When weight is added it bends without cracking. Another characteristic of steel is that its plasticity or ductility, meaning that when force is added it won’t crack however it will lose shape therefore giving warning for people to evacuate the building. A disadvantage of steel is that is loses strength when subject to fire. Studies have shown that it can loose up- to half its strength when subject to fire, therefore making it imperative to cover the steel with boards or spray on.

The fire escape became more than an emergency exit in a burning building. It is used for everything from outdoor to dining to sleeping and gardening, opening up the home to the surrounding city like a “porch in the sky” or “private get-away”.

For years if not decades, firefighters have responded to a reported structure fire that turned out to be a fully involved single room. This fire scenario requires a core set of fire tactics and skills to control and extinguished the fire, but is it this simple? Perhaps twenty years it may have been, but new dangers are lurking in every scenario and may have detrimental outcomes for unsuspecting and unaware firefighters and victims. The National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) agency along with the Underwriters Laboratory (UL) have been conducting research to understand fire behavior and fire dynamics. This research is providing firefighters with new information about how and why

Many fire service personnel that have fifteen or twenty years of service have seem many things change over time. One radical change is the way fires consume structures today when compared structures years ago, these fires have be classified as modern and legacy fires. When responding to a modern construction fire versus a legacy fire, does it change how we fight these fires? Well the answer to that is simply yes! Modern construction physiognomies have greatly changed to accommodate the comfort of the homeowner, which is not firefighter friendly. In modern construction home the floor plans are larger in size to give more living space. As the living spaces grow the footprint of the residence increases as well. As the word modern leads to occupants thinking comfort, when truthfully causes disadvantageous consequences for the fire service with open geometrics, new construction materials, and also include an increased fire load. All these construction advantages only lead to faster propagation of the fire, as well decreases the amount of time for a flashover to occur. Modern construction has led to hasty changes in fire dynamics, which at the same time decreases the amount of time to escape to safety. The structural collapse time is greater since the amount of time as been lessened

The fire rating for 1970’s comparted to present time was a critical factor in fire protection that impacted the structural integrity of the building at the time of impact. The lack of fireproofing inside the towers had a big impact on the fire-rating of the building. There were 4 types of fire-proofing used during the construction phase of the World Trade Center. Some were used from the ground up until the 37th-38th floor on the North Tower. Some were missed with fireproofing on the trusses that should have been applied. Other things such as ductwork, conduits, and piping were installed before fireproofing was applied. So many things were missed during the fireproofing stage because of the code enforcements weren’t in place at the time of the

Hickory Estates is a community where buildings in the 1920’s through the 1940’s where build very quickly. This community has sloping streets, and is located above the Clearwater River. This area has single-family homes constructed with multistory, and wood-framed built homes. The population of this community is 6412 residents. Due to the era the homes were built in, a typical problem is the connection between the wood frame and the foundation. The lack of steel reinforcement can cause major damages due to its weak points0. An earthquake can cause the wood frame to come off its foundation, foundation cracks, the chimney breaking at the roof line, and the cripple walls (the walls between the top of the foundation and the floor diaphragm) to crack. This is why Hickory Estates has 8% of homes that will be uninhabitable after an Intensity IX earthquake.

If I was in command on a steel building fire in my area and the crews inside advised me that it was getting to hot in there, even with crews outside trying to cool the steel. A steel building holds more heat than wood frame construction. Wood burns through faster than steel to collapse a building. Temperature above 1,000 degrees F, the steel tends to soften and fail in a fire. In recent test by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) E-119 Fireproofing steel columns, the columns fails when a temperature of 1,200 degrees F is exceeded at one point or 1,000 degrees F is exceeded on the average in the column. That’s why I would pull all my firefighters out and

Lightweight construction started showing up in the late seventies and has come to dominate the construction industry both on a commercial and residential level. The construction industry began using pre-manufactured components and lightweight construction methods in order to improve the efficiency of the construction process and to reduce costs associated with materials. Light weight construction is very efficient in the fact that it takes less material and money to manufacture. It can perform the task of a much larger and heavier piece of material with a quarter of the weight and using less space.

Materials for Low Impact Buildings ARC 6821 Elena Constanti Number of words: 3002 CONTENTS Introduction 3 Chapter 1: Sheffield 1.1. Site Location and specification 4 1.2. Construction Materials of Sheffield 5 Chapter 2: Assessing Criteria 2.1 Life Cycle Assessment 6 Chapter 3:

Within the United States there are five different types of construction. Firefighters need to know and understand each of them. Every construction type have fire resistant weaknesses, these weaknesses will result in fire spreading in the building. If firefighters understand how the fire will spread, then understand how to extinguish the fire faster and more importantly firefighters are better protected from injuries or worse. In America all buildings are associated with one of the types of construction, identified by Roman number. The building codes are, fire resistant (type I), combustible (type II), ordinary construction (type III), heavy-timber construction (type IV) and wood-frame construction (type V). It is important to remember that all buildings are not the same. Each different building construction type will burn much differently than the others do. In order to be able to size-up a building 's fire hazard, firefighters need to be able to understand a buildings contents and construction. Materials that are stored inside of the building and also materials used to construct the building will both fuel the fire. Also know that if a structure is vacant or if the contents in the building are not combustible, the main fire hazard is the building. The scale of the construction types are scaled according to the fire load of combustible material that was used for its construction. A fire resistant building is constructed with least amount of combustible materials, and a

A very important part of being a firefighter is knowing building construction. Building construction is classified as being type 1-fire resistive, type 2-non-combustible, type 3-ordinary, type 4-heavy timber and type 5-wood framed. One will give an overview of building construction, including the various types and designs, the applications of building and fire codes how it relates to firefighting operations, the awareness firefighters should have on the fire ground and what a firefighter should know concerning building collapse.

The fire protection engineering job outlook is very good and has grown eleven percent in the past year. Also along with the growth is an increase in more complex building designs. These building require more performance-based numerical tools. Also, they now use probabilistic risk analysis. When using performance based numerical tools they tell the safety factor of buildings. That is why they use the risk analysis. Risk analysis are also more accurate because the numerical tools on newer day buildings are not as accurate, so the checking of a building every possible risk and a solution for it is much more accurate

Trusses are commonly used in structure due to the fact that they have additional support and that they provide relatively higher strength. Because in the trusses mostly