Fire engineering services

Design analysis from Lloyd's Register

Our fire engineering service helps designers to evaluate alternative proposals and to comply with the new Regulation. Our experience of passenger ships is second to none, and our flexible approach and unrivalled expertise will help you deliver safe, effective plans for your new ship.

With effect from July 1, 2002, the revised Chapter II-2 of SOLAS gives builders, owners and administrations an alternative to the prescriptive fire regulations. Introduction of the new Regulation 17, into the revised Chapter II-2, allows a performance-based fire engineering analysis to be used for alternative design and arrangements for fire safety.

Our fire engineering service helps designers to evaluate alternative proposals and to comply with the new Regulation. Our experience of passenger ships is second to none, and our flexible approach and unrivalled expertise will help you deliver safe, effective plans for your new ship.  

What is fire engineering?

Fire engineering is the use of fire science, engineering, analysis including computer simulation and common sense, to provide fire safety precautions tailored to each design by:

• identifying hazards and fire scenarios

• setting acceptance criteria

• defining alternatives

• carrying out analysis, based on a fundamental understanding of the behaviour of fire and people.

What are the benefits?

Some of the benefits of using a performance-based fire engineering analysis include:

• design flexibility

• safe design

• improved knowledge of loss potential.

How this is achieved?

In collaboration with the owners and shipbuilder, we are able to provide experienced specialist surveyors and fire engineers to analyse proposed alternative designs. We have carried out a range of performance-based fire engineering analyses using the guidance shown in MSC/Circ.1002 Guidelines on Alternative Design and Arrangements which have subsequently been deemed acceptable by flag administration and port state control authorities, including the US Coast Guard.

Where could you use a fire engineering analysis?

Fire engineering analysis can be used for innovative design features on all ship types, which are not currently addressed by the prescriptive regulations within Chapter II-2 of SOLAS.

What does the analysis consist of?

The analysis used is dependent upon the complexity of the specific alternative design being evaluated. Complex designs may require the combined use of computer-based evacuation analysis in addition to the fire modelling tools. The extent of the analysis is determined during the early stages of the design process.

Fire modelling

There are a number of computer-based fire modelling programs currently in use today. For a specific design, these models can be used in a fire engineering analysis to predict smoke movement and temperature gradients within a particular space.

Generally ‘zone’ or ‘computational fluid dynamics’ (CFD) models are used depending upon the complexity of the design.

Evacuation analysis

Used in conjunction with fire modelling, computer-based evacuation analysis can be used to estimate the allowable safe evacuation time of the occupants within a specific area of the vessel. Comparison of the allowable evacuation time with the time taken for the conditions in the space to become hazardous provides the fire engineer with the confidence that the overall life safety objectives have been achieved.

We currently use maritimeEXODUS, a softwarebased program developed by international human behaviour and modelling experts at the University of Greenwich.

Summary of benefits

• Encourages design innovation and flexibility by giving designers the choice of a performance-based method to demonstrate compliance where a complex or innovative design cannot meet conventional prescriptive requirements.

• Results in safer design in which there is a more effective, focused safety provision, where the precautions are tailored to the actual risk.

• Helps to eliminate ineffective precautions and reduce interruption to business.

• Improved knowledge of loss potential can be achieved by analysing the actual fire risk and consequences, which can provide valuable information for insurers and help in the decision making process to protect high-asset vessels.