Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings - Code of practice
This Malaysian Standard is supported by a series of Published Documents from the British Standard Institute (BSI) which that contain guidance and information on how to undertake detailed analysis of specific aspects of FSE. This does not preclude the use of appropriate methods and data from other sources. Figure 1 shows the structure of this Malaysian Standard and the Published Documents.
This Malaysian Standard:
1) provides a framework for and describes the philosophy that underpins FSE;
2) outlines the principles involved in the application of the philosophy to the FSE of particular buildings;
3) provides means of establishing acceptable levels of fire safety without imposing disproportionate constraints on aspects of building design;
4) provides guidance on the design and assessment of fire safety measures in buildings;
5) gives a structured approach to assessing the effectiveness of the fire safety strategy in achieving the functional objectives;
6) can be used to identify and define one or more fire safety design issues to be addressed using FSE;
7) provides alternative approaches to existing standards for fire safety and also allows the effect of departures from design codes to be evaluated;
8) recognizes that the functional objectives can be achieved by a range of alternative and complementary fire protection strategies;
9) aims to facilitate innovation in design without compromising safety;
10) provides guidance to ensure that the building is constructed such that: it can withstand fire actions that are reasonably foreseeable; its layout and configuration does not prejudice its integrity; and foreseeable life-cycle fabrication, construction, commissioning, operation, modification, maintenance and repair can proceed without prejudicing its integrity; and
11) provides a flexible framework that can be used for simple aspects of fire safety design (e.g. a minor variation from prescriptive guidance) using perhaps only part of a single subsystem of this standard, to complex fire safety challenges (e.g. a major departure from prescriptive guidance) that require use of all sub-systems.
This Malaysian Standard provides a performance-based approach to design in which the specific fire hazards and their potential consequences can be identified and fire safety measures can be introduced, as necessary, to ensure that the functional objectives are met. It also enables the results of research into fire and human response to be translated directly into the building design process.
