PUBLICATIONS
PROBABLE CAUSE
Probabilistic risk analysis should be used more often for fire-engineered designs. Michael Belsham explains, using the example of a proposed hotel design.
PROBABILISTIC risk analysis (PRA) forms part of the British Standard, BS 7974: Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings, yet remains under-utilised within the fire engineering industry. The reasons for this under-use are unclear, since:
- PRA provides an ideal method to assess fire engineering solutions, especially where consequence-based methods, such as available safe egress time (ASET)/required safe evacuation time (RSET), may not be suitable – for example, in sleeping-type use
- the standards and technical guidance documents that support UK Building Regulations, such as the Technical Handbook in Scotland or Approved Document B in England and Wales, are all risk-based
- (the ultimate objective is to ensure that the risk of death in a building type is acceptably low); thus a risk-based approach, such as PRA, is inherently a more consistent and coherent method of developing alternative fireengineered solutions
- PRA methods enable a better understanding of failure modes, and this enables better informed and more focused design. PRA formally determines the required reliability of a system, not just its performance if it works as designed ...
Publication details for download