Building façades are considered as one of the critical elements of a buildings especially in case of fire where poor performance façades lead to severe fire spread and building damage including human loss. There has been a significant improvement in façade design to ensure excellent building performance in terms of energy efficiency and requirements on aesthetic appeal. These changes fundamentally alter the behaviour of modern façades in fire and pose a risk to building safety and economic loss in the event of a fire. The latest incident at Grenfell tower demonstrated how vulnerable modern facades may be to fires, and emphasised how this vulnerability directly affects the safety of building occupants. The paper provides the first comprehensive review of current international design guidelines and test methods involving fire resistive design of facades. The influence of cladding material, geometry of the façade, cavities, wind and space between buildings are also discussed. Test methods that can be used to predict the flame and smoke spread are introduced and compared comprehensively. Critical aspects as the combustibility of the materials, and further studies on façade performance in fire are also highlighted.
Plastic shrinkage cracking is a common phenomenon associated with concreting in hot and windy weather. Excess evaporation of bleed water causes loss of water from the concrete surface and plastic shrinkage occurs due to that at very early stage i.e. within the first 4-6 hours. Tensile strain will be developed as a result of this shrinkage and cracking will occur when it exceeds the tensile strain capacity of concrete. This paper is aimed at developing a model to simulate such behavior and determine the tensile strain development with time. First, key factors affecting shrinkage, bleeding and evaporation, were modelled and the starting time of drying was identified. Subsequent loss of water was calculated and incorporated in a finite element model to simulate the tensile strain development. Calculated strains were very similar to the measured strains and therefore the model can be used to accurately predict the development of early age tensile strain due to plastic shrinkage.
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