Fire resistance rated systems are critical to protecting lives of occupants who are in your structure when on fire. It allows for safe escape routes, while at the same time providing fire fighters the ability to safely carry out fire stopping, rescue, and search operations and prevents the fire from spreading from area to area.
Fire resistance solutions are a critical component to passive fire protection in your building. Fire resistance ratings are measured against its capabilities of how a PFP system can withstand a fire resistance test. Such assessment can be easily quantified by a measure of time, or it may also entail to a whole host of other criteria that pertain to evidence of fire resistant functionality and whether it is appropriate for use.
Fire walls, barriers and partitions protect areas of your building for prescribed durations, allowing occupants to escape and provide routes for fire fighters in the event of fire related incidents.
Fire rated resistance ceilings and floors support passive fire protection's fire walls and adds security against the spread of fire in your building, while adding structural support and thermal insulated capabilities.
Fire resistance doors provide opening penetration protection and maintain the structural integrity of your fire wall, barrier or partition.
Glazing and glass with fire resistant properties adds extra passive fire protection solutions to your building, allowing people to see fire threats and shield occupants from fire in office or facility spaces of small nature.
Fire Resistance Rating (FRR) is the term that classifies fire resistance of primary and secondary building elements, as determined in a standard test for fire resistance. The FRR is made up of three numbers and functions, measured in time (in minutes) for which each of the criteria Stability, Integrity, and Insulation are satisfied. Read as, for example, - / 90 / 90.
The Stability fire rating is based upon the time a fire protection element can withstand a standard fire test and hold its loadbearing limit while allowing a level of defined load capacity. Essentially, the higher the R rating, the more ability the element has to resist a fire when exposed and when under load during a longer time period.
The Integrity fire rating (E) is the ability of an element’s fire separation capability to resist and limit penetration or passage of flames and gasses through its joints and to prevent the occurrence of flames on the unexposed side, during a fire.
The insulation fire rating (I) is the time defined, by a separating element of building construction, to restrict the rise of temperature on the non-exposed side during a fire.
The current requirements for designing and building for fire resistance operations are related to sections Cl - C4 of the NZ Building Code and fire performance data covered in NZ Standards document MP9. For more info, follow the link: