Compartmentalization in Buildings with curtain wall façade

Actualizado a fecha: 2 December, 2018

The buildings with curtain wall facade are unique because that this element is normally composed of glass supported by a metal framework, which in case of fire would allow the fire to spread from one plant to another higher by the outer side after a few minutes from the beginning of the fire. Therefore, the Technical Building Code in the DB-SI “Outside Propagation” section discusse in section 3 the following:

This indicates that when there is a sector change between plants in a building with a curtain wall facade that is not fire resistant, we should provide the forged edge with an EI-60 element positioned vertically at a distance of 1 meter measured in the facade, except if we can minimize this to the same distance to the ledge. In addition, this solution should be independent of the curtain wall attached directly to the slab in order to prevent that a possible collapse destroys the compartmentalization  solution.