The combustibility of timber is one of the main reasons that many building regulations strictly limit the use of timber as a building material. Fire safety is an important contribution to feeling safe, and an important criterion for the choice of building materials. Historically, the combustibility aspect of wood has been a disadvantage for using timber as a construction material. The main precondition for an increased use of timber in buildings is providing adequate fire safety. This paper reviews the opportunities and challenges to reach this goal by implementing Fire Safety Engineering and Performance Based Design principles.

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(2017) "Timber under real fire conditions -the influence of oxygen content and gas velocity on the charring behavior", Journal of Structural Fire Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1108/JSFE-01-2017-0013 Permanent link to this document: https://doi.org/10.1108/JSFE-01-2017-0013 For AuthorsIf you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.*Related content and download information correct at time of download. Andrea FrangiInstitute of Structural Engineering, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this study is to investigate the influencing factors on the charring behaviour of timber, the char layer and the charring depth in non-standard fires.Design/methodology/approach -This paper summarizes outcomes of tests, investigating the influences on the charring behavior of timber by varying the oxygen content and the gas velocity in the compartment. Results show that charring is depending on the fire compartment temperature, but results show further that at higher oxygen flow, char contraction was observed affecting the protective function of the char layer.Findings -In particular, in the cooling phase, char contraction should be considered which may have a significant impact on performance-based design using non-standard temperature fire curves where the complete fire history including the cooling phase has to be taken into account.Originality/value -Up to now, some research on non-standard fire exposed timber member has been performed, mainly based on standard fire resistance tests where boundary conditions as gas flow and oxygen content especially in the decay phase are not measured or documented. The approach presented in this paper is the first documented fire tests with timber documenting the data required.

The fire performance of heavy timber frame structures is often limited by the poor fire performance of its connections. Conventional timber connections, dowelled or toothed plate connections typically use steel as a connector material. In a fire, the steel parts rapidly conduct heat into the timber, leading to reduced fire performance. Replacing metallic connectors with alternative non-metallic, low thermal conductivity connector materials can, therefore, lead to improved connection performance in fire. This paper presents an experimental study into the fire performance of metal-free timber connections comprising a hot-pressed plywood flitch plate and glass-fibre-reinforced polymer dowels. The thermal behaviour of the connections at elevated temperatures is studied using a standard cone calorimeter apparatus and a novel heat transfer rate inducing system. The latter is a fire testing system developed at the University of Edinburgh. The mechanical behaviour of the connection during severe heating was also studied using an environmental chamber at temperatures up to 610°C. The results demonstrate that heat transfer in the non-metallic connections is governed by the thermal properties of the timber, resulting in significant enhancements in connection fire performance.

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