Development of fundamentals for performance- and risk-based fire protection design in timber engineering

Summary

The future fire protection regulations 2026 provide for the first time the basis for the application of performance- and risk-based design methods in Switzerland. On behalf of Lignum, we are developing the models needed to allow such design methods in timber engineering.
The main idea of performance-based design methods is to verify the ultimate resistance during the entire fire. This contrasts with today's typical prescriptive design methods, where the load-bearing resistance only must be ensured for a sufficient, prescribed duration.
Today's performance-based design methods were developed for non-combustible building structures, where a fire “self-extinguishes” as soon as the mobile fire load is burned. For timber buildings, however, the structure itself may "feed" the fire until the structure collapses, i.e. self-extinguishment is not necessarily given. Among many other things we do in this project, we extend the current design methods in a way that the fire load contribution of combustibles structures is considered and the resistance of the structure is ensured for the full duration of the fire.

Support

This project is supported by Lignum, the umbrella organization of the Swiss forestry and timber industry.