RR1120 - A review of the applicability of the jet fire resistance test method to severe release scenarios
When assessing safety cases for offshore installations, HSE may have to consider if the passive fire protection materials installed are suitable to protect against the events they may encounter. In situations where passive fire protection for structures and components could be subject to an intense jet fire, that suitability is judged by the results of testing to the ISO22899-1 international standard.
Within the offshore industry, it has been suggested that this standard test is not adequate for all fire situations. This has led to some protection products being tested to non-standard methods intended to create a higher heat flux in order to represent a more severe fire.
This report examines a range of jet fire scenarios and concludes that the standard test is representative of most but for certain scenarios may not always be applicable. However, simply increasing the heat flux may not produce a more onerous test.
In order to ensure that hazards from major jet fires are adequately controlled, large scale testing is needed to show how fire protection products respond to the actual fire events. Only with such information can validated, practical scale test procedures be produced, for any situations where the current standard test is not applicable.
This report and the work it describes were funded by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Its contents, including any opinions and/or conclusions expressed, are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect HSE policy.
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