FiRECAM~(TM): An Equivalency and Performance-Compliance Tool for Cost-Effective Fire Safety Design

摘要

Many countries in the world, including Canada, are moving towards the more flexible performance-based building regulations and away from the present restrictive prescription-based regulations. Performance-based regulations allow the designers and building officials the freedom to come up with innovative designs that will provide a level of safety that satisfies the objectives established by the regulations. Such innovative designs often lead to lower fire protection costs. The implementation of performance-based building regulations can be facilitated by the development of engineering tools that can help assess the overall fire safety performance of a building. This paper presents a fire risk assessment model, FiRECAM?, which can be used as an equivalency and a performance-compliance design tool for cost-effective fire safety. The paper also describes a case study using this tool as well as the evaluation and deployment plans for the tool.