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FIRE SERVICE AND GENERAL FIRE SAFETY TOPICS => Fire Safety => Topic started by: GB on October 11, 2010, 11:05:43 AM
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I am looking for reference material which will provide indcative fire resistance periods for items such as 12.5mm plasterboard and 12mm ply sheathing etc.
I appreciate that the entire detail needs to be assessed however I am looking to consider individual components at this stage.
Can anyone suggest any good sources of info.
Many thanks
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For plasterboard you could try the white book.
http://www.british-gypsum.com/literature/white_book.aspx
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Be very wary of trying to allocate indicative times to materials - they may only give the indicated time when fixed in a certain way. For instance, you'll hear people say half an inch (12.7mm) of plasterboard gives half an hour. Just the plasterboard by itself won't necessarily.
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Most board manufacturers publish guidance on how their products should be used - as Tom says the British Gypsum white book is an excellent guide to their products.
http://www.british-gypsum.com/literature/white_book.aspx
For older systems and methods you may find the BRE digest "Increasing the fire resistance of existing timber floors" of interest- Digest 208 published in 1977.
The FPA document "Fire protection in old buildings and historic town centres ISBN 0902 167405 is also interesting in giving a little (2 pages) guidance on the relative fire performance of differnet types of construction.
My favourite of all is an old book published by Cape Boards - "The fire protection handbook" - an early forerunner of the white book, they used to publish it in a A5 spiral bound format. It is a brilliant resource.
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An old edition of ADB. Circa 1985 is handy.
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You will also find in Schedule 8 - Notional Periods of Fire Resistance in the 1965 Building regulations deals with this subject.
If you are interested try http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=1965+building+regulations&x=16&y=23
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If it's timber constructions you're interested in, then I've always referred to BS 5268-4.2:1990 "Structural use of timber. Fire resistance of timber structures. Recommendations for calculating fire resistance of timber stud walls and joisted floor constructions". I note on the BSi website that this has been superseded by BS EN 1995-1-2, but I have never used that, so I can't endorse that it does what you need. If on any other construction, you'd need to look at the manufacturer's data (British Gypsum or Knauf, for plasterboard).