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Fire Science ShowAuthor: Wojciech Wegrzynski
Fire Science Show is connecting fire researchers and practitioners with a society of fire engineers, firefighters, architects, designers and all others, who are genuinely interested in creating a fire-safe future. Through interviews with a diverse group of experts, we present the history of our field as well as the most novel advancements. We hope the Fire Science Show becomes your weekly source of fire science knowledge and entertainment. Produced in partnership with the Diamond Sponsor of the show - OFR Consultants Language: en-us Genres: Physics, Science, Technology Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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247 - Calculation methods for fire resistance with Piotr Turkowski
Tuesday, 14 April, 2026
You don’t always need a furnace to end up with a fire resistance rating, but you do need to understand what kind of “proof” you’re actually creating. I’m joined again by Dr. Piotr Turkowski from ITB to unpack calculation methods for fire resistance and the real-world chain from engineering assumptions to a Declaration of Performance. We talk about when standards and European Assessment Documents (EADs) explicitly allow Eurocode-based assessment, and how different methods will lead you to your resulting class in a different way.We spend a lot of time on the practical heart of structural fire engineering: concrete and steel. For reinforced concrete (Eurocode 2, EN 1992-1-2), we compare tabulated data, simplified calculation approaches like the zone method, and advanced global modeling that starts to look more like performance-based fire safety engineering than classification. For steel (Eurocode 3, EN 1993-1-2), we break down critical temperature, utilization, section factor, and what you can realistically expect from unprotected members under the standard fire curve.Then we get into the more challenging part that tables or simplified methods can’t completely capture: fire protection materials. Sprayed mortars, boards, and intumescent coatings change properties with temperature, moisture, and expansion, and their performance can hinge on stickability, cracking, and detachment during large deflections. Finally, Piotr shares a strong caution on masonry, where tabulated data can be dangerously optimistic for some concrete hollow blocks, and we close with a look at what machine learning might someday add to fire resistance prediction.Here is a link to the paper about Masonry: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0379711226000512ITB and Piotr have international courses on fire resistance and fire testing - keep an eye out on them!----The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.
