Performance based fire safety evaluation of high-rise residential buildings in Istanbul

The number of high-rise buildings in urban regions have shown a steady increase recently. Fire is a major threat to people lives in these buildings even in cases where it does not cause structural damage to these buildings. High-rise buildings are more vulnerable to fire due to dense occupancy, greater vertical distance to building exits and the functionality problems of active and passive protection systems. All these factors might increase the time needed to evacuate the buildings. The combustible items used in modern residential buildings have shorter flashover times, which is another negative factor reducing the time occupants need to evacuate buildings. Taking all of these factors into account, this study aims to investigate the level of threat on occupant lives in high-rise residential buildings for a specific set of fire scenarios. All possible effects including queuing, toxic gas and visibility issues are investigated in this study through a selection of representative high-rise buildings with a range of 15 to 45 floors located in Istanbul. A concept known as the fractional effective dose is utilized to calculate the number of occupants affected by heat or narcotic gas hazard. A detailed investigation is also performed to determine fire loads in most common residential parts, such as the living room, bedroom, and kitchen. Heat release rate curves of these compartments are determined based on the fire load data from surveys. The egress models of the high-rise buildings coupled with fire hazard related heat, visibility and toxicity levels is created using buildingEXODUS software The data obtained at the end of this process is used to create regression models, which calculate the fractional effective ratios and the likelihood of people being affected by fire.