Ceiling fires in timber buildings

建筑行业正在寻求通过使用更可持续、低碳的建筑材料和系统来解决碳排放问题。一种越来越普遍的施工方法是交叉层压木材（CLT）。这种产品可以通过将许多单独的（较小的）木板粘合在一起来创建巨大的木板（和墙壁）。这种建筑方式的一个挑战是木材（不像砖、石、钢或混凝土）会燃烧。暴露的木质天花板在CLT建筑中很常见。在有暴露的木材的地方，总是有增加火势蔓延的可能性。这产生了一个重大的风险，即由此产生的火灾动力学可能违反现有措施的许多基础假设，以提供足够的建筑物消防安全，因此需要进行调查。本研究将研究暴露的木质天花板的点火和燃烧。研究小组将通过小规模燃烧木材（约10厘米宽的样品）来研究木材如何点燃以及火焰如何加热其环境。然后，研究小组将扩大规模，研究一块燃烧的木材如何点燃另一块（邻近的）木材。最后，研究小组将在1米宽的木质房间内点火，并研究火势如何蔓延。这项研究的新颖之处在于暴露的木材天花板，这对商业木结构建筑尤为重要。现有的关于燃烧木材的知识大多是在木材处于“地板”或“墙壁”状态时产生的。技术上的挑战在于如何将小规模实验与“房间规模”的火灾联系起来。这项工作将利用爱丁堡大学拉什布鲁克消防实验室的现有设施进行。该研究将利用爱丁堡大学在这一领域已有的现有知识深度，并将有助于在英国的建筑行业中安全使用这种形式的建筑。

The construction industry is seeking to address its carbon emissions by using more sustainable, low-carbon building materials and systems. One method of construction that is becoming increasingly common is Cross Laminated Timber (CLT). This product allows huge slabs (and walls) of timber to be created by gluing lots of individual (smaller) planks together. One challenge with this way of building is that timber (unlike brick, stone, steel or concrete) burns. Exposed timber ceilings are very common in CLT buildings. Where there is exposed timber, there is always the possibility for increased fire spread. This generates a significant risk that the resulting fire dynamics could violate many underpinning assumptions of existing measures to provide adequate fire safety in buildings, and thus requires investigation.This research will study the ignition and burning of exposed timber ceilings. The research team will study this by burning timber at small scale (~10 cm wide samples) to study how the timber ignites and how the flame then heats its environment. The team will then scale up to study how one piece of burning timber, can ignite another (adjacent) piece of timber. Finally, the team will ignite fires in ~1m wide timber rooms and study how the fire spreads. The novelty of this research will be the focus on exposed timber ceilings, which as particular importance for commercial timber buildings. Much of the existing knowledge about burning timber has been generated when the timber is in the "floor" or "wall" condition. The technical challenge is in linking together the small scale experiments with the "room scale" fires.The work will be undertaken using existing facilities at the University of Edinburgh's Rushbrook Fire Laboratory. The research will take advantage of the existing depth of knowledge that the University of Edinburgh already have in this area and will help to enable the safe use of this form of construction in the UK's construction industry.