Fire design of the shopping center

Designing

    At this stage, through the prism of experienced specialists of the project organization, all the ideas of the customer are transferred to paper (number of floors, parking lots, layout, finishing and other issues).

  It is worth highlighting a number of complex features of this process:

1. Design experience

Basically, designers deal with standard structures: office and residential, standard (close to them) objects of trade, and it often happens that they transfer their experience in ensuring fire safety of such structures to truly gigantic shopping malls (shopping and entertainment complexes). But in practice, such attempts to implement the previous experience have a dubious result. 

2. Evacuation of visitors and the issue of fire risk

Hundreds and thousands of buyers, sometimes for the first time in the shopping mall, are sure that it is quite safe here, they are not familiar with such features as evacuation routes, the scheme of the complex, and naturally no one instructs them.

  Of course, by calculation, the degree of fire risk is determined (possible scenarios, evacuation time, etc.), but modeling implies the course of this process as "uniform". In practice, to put it mildly, this is not the case.   Most of the evacuation routes are not available to people, so in a critical situation, the "crowd factor" is turned on, which is fraught with crush and chaos. It is not enough just to send visitors to the nearest exit – a clear algorithm of actions and understanding of what is happening is required (where the fire occurred, how to prevent people from crowding at the exit, calculate its throughput).

3. Provision of water

The installation of automatic extinguishing of fires is provided in the trading halls (including utility rooms) of ground accommodation, the area of which exceeds 3,500 square meters. The mode of operation (trade, parking, entertainment) assumes the presence of a lot of people, therefore, we are talking purely about extinguishing fires with water. A half-hour operation of such installations will require more than one hundred cubic meters of water. At one point, the existing, standard water supply system is not able to issue such volumes. It is required, precisely at the design stage, to carefully, to the smallest detail, provide for the placement of fire tanks (reservoirs). The terrible picture of the tragedy of the Admiral shopping center in Kazan is still fresh in my memory, when, due to weak water pressure, extinguishing was carried out using a helicopter.

4. Notification: signals, pointers, personnel actions

Background broadcast of signals (announcements, or service messages about a fire, its exact location, nature) has certain parameters that differ from the characteristics of musical accompaniment signals. In critical situations, notification of a fire that has started requires constant monitoring of the integrity of the communication line, maximum efficiency in the operation of backup electrical power supplies, while musical accompaniment primarily assumes its own band of reproducible frequencies, as well as dynamic range, which is already a contradiction.
It is very good if in the complex, the designed system will automatically fulfill its task. Of course, it doesn't always work that way.

  It is often necessary to intervene on duty workers whose qualifications and training are not ideal. It is simply necessary to provide the staff on duty with an electronic gadget that gives all the answers to unforeseen situations in the form of a clear algorithm of actions.

The main difficulties of design also include:

• The presence of strict regulations for social and transport infrastructure;

• The presence of dense urban development;
  

• A number of restrictive construction parameters;
  

• Difficulties in connecting to power grids (considerable capacities and limits will be required) and other points.

Only small aspects of the existing problems are given. Do not forget that the specialists of design organizations have a huge responsibility, and first of all - for human lives.

Commissioning

     At the stage of construction of the gas station, it is very important to prevent dangerous (often tragic) savings in such positions as:

• fire safety equipment (install structures with a dubious reputation that have not been fully tested and certified);

• construction materials (design solutions are replaced with cheaper analogues);

• the quality of the construction process (technology, contractor qualification).

   The accounting of alterations is also important. Even with a perfectly designed structure, current redevelopments sometimes negate fire safety. Here, it is important to maintain the overall balance of the structure, so that such introductions do not affect escape routes, exits and others.

  Before commissioning, a thorough inspection of the building under construction, in practice reveals hundreds of comments, so only after eliminating the latter, we can talk about commissioning.

  The Gosstroynadzor Commission, having made sure that the contractor has accurately and correctly fulfilled all the decisions prescribed by the draft, issues a permit, after which cadastral work is carried out, a technical plan is drawn up and the finished TRK is registered with the Rosreestr.

Ready-made fire safety solutions

Equipping the shopping mall with high-quality and time-tested means has proven its effectiveness more than once.

Here are some examples of competent implementation of fire safety issues:

The design of the fire curtain "Accordion" is the latest development in this field. The principle of operation is based on the ability to automatically form a closed space that prevents the spread of fire and its products through the territory of the building, thereby protecting people and inventory.

 

Produced in three variations (with standard design):

 

• There is water irrigation (one-way). The water consumption at the same time is 0.04 liters per second, and the maximum resistance to fire (EI 60) is 60 minutes;

• There is water irrigation (one-way). The water consumption at the same time is 0.08 liters per second, and the maximum resistance to fire (EI 120) is 120 minutes;
  

• There is water irrigation (one-way). The water consumption at the same time is 7.3 liters per minute, based on 1 meter running, and the maximum resistance to fire (EI 180) is three hours.

Interestingly, the operation of the product (lifting and lowering) is carried out only by an electric motor, and in the absence of a centralized power supply, power is supplied from a backup source (battery type).

  And most importantly, there are no guides in the product, which makes the design practical and versatile.

  Product shape: round, closed rectangular square, "G" and "P" shaped.

Installation is carried out by simple fastening to the ceiling, and the resistance of the latter to the effects of fire should be equal or higher than the same parameter of the curtain itself.

Example of an accordion curtain in the Court of Cassation in Kemerovo

    Eight sets of smoke–proof curtains of the "ACCORDION" type E 120 have been installed at this facility, while their size (15 meters by 18 meters and a lowering height of 3 meters) has become unique - never used before. This circumstance required from the developer a full intellectual return, all the knowledge and skills of designing huge structures, competent installation and performance testing.