At Warringtonfire Australia, we use a performance-based approach to customise a package of alternative fire safety measures for a design - allowing our clients to achieve their objectives but still maintain the level of fire safety required by the building code and approval authorities.
Fire safety is one of the major regulatory hurdles for new and existing buildings. Compliance with the prescriptive requirements of the Building Code and associated Australian standards often limit designers in achieving their vision and goals for a building project.
These building code requirements are generic and conservative in nature as they are intended to cover all possible design scenarios. They are also often based on the assumed worst-case scenario.
What are performance solutions and DTS solutions?
Complying With The NCC
The National Construction Code (NCC) is a performance-based code that contains all performance requirements for the construction of buildings.
Compliance with the performance requirements of the NCC is achieved by complying with the Deemed-To-Satisfy (DTS) provisions, the use of performance solutions or a combination of both methods - refer to the diagram on the left.
A DTS solution is a set of solutions noted in the NCC that are deemed to meet the performance requirements.
A performance solution is a flexible solution that has been designed for each individual situation to meet the level of quality of the building and is deemed to meet the performance requirements on a performance basis.
What is a performance-based approach?
For fire safety, the performance requirements in the building code relate to several key areas such as:
- Facilitating the evacuation of occupants from within a building.
- Facilitating fire brigade intervention.
- Limiting the spread of fire from one building to another.
As a part of a performance-based approach Warringtonfire Australia use our fire engineering toolkit to analyse the building’s design against the relevant performance requirements to ensure they are met.
This performance-based approach allows designer options to achieve compliance with the NCC. Compliance with the prescriptive requirements (DTS) of the NCC and associated referenced documents (mostly Australian Standards) often limit designers in achieving their vision and goals for a building project.
Our performance-based fire safety engineering solutions allow for greater design flexibility and help our clients to maintain the original architectural and operational intent of the building. We consider the design and use of the building and provide safe and practical design outcomes. Our performance-based solutions are benchmarked against the objectives and intent of the NCC, allowing us to clearly demonstrate an acceptable level of performance and the suitability of our designs.
What is a performance-based design brief?
The purpose of a performance-based design brief is to consult all relevant stakeholders about a proposed development, any performance solutions and determine the appropriate assessment methodology, method of analysis and acceptance criteria. Since 1 July 2021 this has become a mandatory requirement in the building code when developing a performance solution.
Why Warringtonfire for my performance solutions?
At Warringtonfire, we have experience working with fire brigades across Australia.
We work hard to achieve positive outcomes through the performance-based design brief process with stakeholders - including the design team, certifying authority, and the local fire brigade.
Analysis and Assessment Services
Fire Assessments
Warringtonfire provide two different types of fire assessment services; technical fire assessments of a product or system and fire safety engineering risk assessments for fire safety and cladding.
CFD Fire Modelling
Solve equations regarding fluid flow and heat transfer from the growth and spread of fire.
Fire Safety Strategy
A fire strategy is the way in which fire safety objectives for a new, altered or existing building are defined and achieved. Warringtonfire’s experienced team of fire safety engineers and consultants in Australia will create the best strategy for your project.
Performance Solutions
At Warringtonfire, we use a performance-based approach to customise a package of alternative fire safety measures for a design – allowing our clients to achieve their objectives but still maintain the level of fire safety required by the building code and approval authorities.
Fire Evacuation Modelling
Latest technology for fire evacuation modelling in order to create an economical and robust solution.
Radiant Heat Transfer Modelling
Radiant heat transfer modelling is a key tool that the fire safety engineers at Warringtonfire use when trying to predict the expected radiant heat transfer from fires to the surroundings and between buildings.
Fire Brigade Intervention Modelling
We can quantify firefighting activities in our fire engineering assessments by using the fire brigade intervention model (FBIM). The FBIM predicts the time taken by a fire brigade to undertake its activities at the fire scene from time of notification through to control and extinguishment.
Fire Risk Assessment
Key fire safety disciplines enables us to provide the most comprehensive and insightful fire risk assessment.
Cladding Risk Assessment
Warringtonfire Australia has a team of accredited fire safety engineers who can conduct combustible cladding risk assessments for a range of projects.