Wiesner, Felix;
Xu, Hangyu;
Lange, David;
Gupta, Vinny;
Pope, Ian;
Torero, José L;
Hidalgo, Juan P;
(2025)
Large-scale compartment fires to develop a self-extinction design
framework for mass timber-Part 2: Results, analysis and design implications.
Fire Safety Journal
, 152
, Article 104346. 10.1016/j.firesaf.2025.104346.
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Abstract
This paper seeks to provide key fundamental knowledge underpinning the use of self-extinction principles as part of a design framework for buildings with engineered mass timber structures. The results from six compartment fire experiments in a cross-laminated timber (CLT) enclosure with different ratios of exposed timber are presented and analyzed to establish the effects of timber exposure on the dynamics of a fire and on the potential of the fire to self-extinguish. The results show the relevance of four key parameters that need to be considered concurrently when assessing self-extinction in mass timber compartments: (a) the characteristic time for burnout of the movable fuel load, (b) the characteristic time for the occurrence of char fall-off, (c) the characteristic time for the occurrence of encapsulation failure, and (d) the heat exchange within the compartment after consumption of the moveable fuel. Self-extinction was attained only when the characteristic time for the occurrence of char fall-off was longer than the characteristic time for burn-out and the heat exchange after burn-out resulted in a heat flux below a well-defined threshold. The position of the exposed timber surfaces affected the magnitude of the threshold heat flux. If the characteristic time for burn-out was greater than the characteristic time for encapsulation failure, self-extinction was not observed to occur.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Large-scale compartment fires to develop a self-extinction design framework for mass timber-Part 2: Results, analysis and design implications |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.firesaf.2025.104346 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2025.104346 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Performance-based design; Compartment fires; Heat transfer; Protection of wood; Large-scale; Cross-laminated timber; Mass timber; Char fall-off |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Civil, Environ and Geomatic Eng |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10207545 |
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