No building is immune to fire, but steel buildings can resist it more than traditional structures. Fire protection materials help to keep structural members below temperatures at which they will fail for a specified time, keeping the structure safe for occupants and allowing firefighters to enter for rescue.
Resistance to Corrosion
Steel is a common building material, but it corrodes quickly if exposed to the elements. This is why a high-quality coating is needed to protect steel structures from corrosion.
Most of the time, Boston fireproofing construction steel experts use sprayed fire-resistive materials (SFRM). These are cementitious products with mineral wool, vermiculite, or sepiolite velvet fillers. When sprayed, they expand and insulate the steel to prevent damage from excessive heat.
Many SFRMs will contain an anticorrosion additive that prevents a chemical reaction with the metal. This is important for preventing galvanic corrosion between dissimilar metals in the same structure.
Thermal Resistance
The structural steel in your building’s beams is a non-combustible material that can handle extreme temperatures. However, the problem comes when the temperature of these components rises too high for a prolonged period. When this happens, the load-carrying capacity of the steel decreases and can cause the structure to collapse.
This is why you must fireproof steel. There are multiple fireproofing methods, including intumescent coatings and spray for steel. These products and services create a monolithic physical barrier that keeps the hottest flames from reaching the steel beams underneath.
This helps protect your property from collapsing in the event of a fire and also extends the time you must evacuate your employees or guests. Fireproofing your steel is required in most industrial buildings, commercial properties, and public facilities with human occupants. Failure to comply with fireproofing mandates can result in significant fines and reputational damage for your company.
Fire Resistance
Steel is an excellent fire-resistant material, but its strength does diminish during the fire. Understanding the fire behavior of structural steel requires a combination of knowledge from metallurgy and engineering and a full understanding of the thermally induced environmental conditions that arise during the steel’s exposure to a fire.
The most common method to protect steel is using spray-applied, fire-rated materials that expand and insulate the structure to prevent failure from rapidly rising temperatures. These products are especially effective when the steel is hidden behind walls and other non-combustible materials like drywall.
Durability
While no construction material can claim to be fireproof, steel does very well in limiting the speed of spreading fire. This is important as it allows people to escape a structure and allows firefighters to access the scene. The most common way to protect a steel structure from fire is fireproofing with spray-applied, cementitious foams like SFRMs. These materials are sprayed onto the surface of steel columns and beams and then intumesce or swell when exposed to high temperatures. The SFRM’s swell slows down the steel’s heating, giving it more time to maintain its load-bearing strength.
These fireproofing materials also offer resistance to corrosion, including galvanic and pitting corrosion. Uniform attack corrosion occurs when bare steel comes into contact with a less-active metal. It can be prevented by not allowing different metals to have direct contact or by using protective coatings that prevent electrical conduction between them (such as galvanization or anodizing).
