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Engineering an Icon or the Probabilistic-based Structural Fire Engineering of the Battersea Power Station
Abstract
For large compartment floors the assumption of full flashover fire is very unlikely to hold true; instead fires are likely to be localised whilst moving around the floor plate. The paper will describe how a series travelling design fires are developed to assess steel framed structures, in which a probabilistic Monte-Carlo approach is adopted as means of developing design fires that are reflective of the risk associated with the use and height of the building. The Monte-Carlo approach involves a bespoke probabilistic method in which a set of parameters are randomised to produce a large number of possible fires occurring within the floor space; this is a step forward from the deterministic approach in which design fires are often being defined. This paper describes how the above principles are adopted to the structural fire design of the office floors in the refurbishment of the Battersea Power Station – one of the largest redevelopment projects in London in recent years.