Fire safety engineering applied to high-rise building facades

Fire safety of high-rise building facades is a complex problem, therefore the use of prescriptive fire codes could not be sufficient to ensure a proper building fire safety level. In new high rise buildings the fire safety of facades can be taken into account by means of performance based fire design that can help in the selection of the best technological solutions and material choices. This article deals with a case study done on the Piedmont Region Headquarters (TORRE REGIONE PIEMONTE) which is one of the highest office buildings in Italy. The “Torre Regione Piemonte” is located in Turin and has 45 storey and a total height of 183,61 m. The building is characterized by the closed enclosure called “Grand Space” which is continuous for almost the entire height of the building and contains volumes such as offices/meeting rooms named as “Satellites”. In order to fulfil Italian fire safety requirements, the “Torre Regione Piemonte” building has been assessed using the performance base design and fire safety engineering approach. This paper deals with the design process selection of the most representative fire scenarios focusing on the fire resistance performance requirements of structural and glazed elements of the facades. Furthermore, all the simulation, calculations and performance fire resistant requirements of the high rise building have been supported by specific laboratory tests and experimental results, that are reported and discussed within paper.