The objective of this thesis is to examine the methods of barrier analysis used in the Building Fire Safety Engineering Method (BFSEM), and to develop the areas of the analysis which currently rely almost exclusively on subjective judgment rather than quantitative measures. The use of the Normalized Heat Load to quantify heat energy impact on a barrier is examined in detail. Procedures are developed which apply the properties of a normal statistical distribution to barrier failures times, for use in simplifying the construction of barrier catalog curves. A framework is also developed to help standardize the selection of barrier effectiveness factors. Finally, this thesis outlines the procedure for developing barrier performance curves to allow easy implementation of the barrier analysis into the general framework of the BFSEM. A design example is presented to illustrate the analysis procedures.

Creator

• Ferreira, Michael J.

Contributors

• Firtzgerald, Robert W.

Degree

• MS

Unit

• Fire Protection Engineering

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Language

• English

Identifier

• etd-11044-095637

Keyword

• Fire Safety
• Fire
• Fire Protection
• building protection

Advisor

• Fitzgerald, Robert W.

Defense date

• 1993-12-01

Year

• 2004

Date created

• 2004-11-04

Resource type

• Thesis

Rights statement

• In Copyright

Last modified

• 2020-11-23