Performance Based Fire Engineering in Japan

This paper explains the Japanese present situations relevant to the fire resistance performance. Performance-based fire provisions was introduced in 1998 for the first time when the Building Standard Law was amended. However, performance-based fire resistance design had been used since long before the official introduction of performance-based provisions. A Comprehensive Technology Development Project of Ministry of Construction from 1982 to 1986 established a technical basis for performance-based fire safety engineering in Japan. A system of calculation methods for fire resistance verification was prescribed in the Ministry Notification in 2000 utilizing the results of this project as a background. This method, referred to as the Fire Resistance Verification Method (FRVM), is the standard method to verify the fire resistance performance of principal building parts such as columns, beams, and walls of steel, concrete, or wood structured buildings. For tall buildings, however, more advanced method for performance verification is often necessary because new building materials or structural systems are often used for these buildings. An example project of tall building owned by a major newspaper company is presented in this paper. Advanced thermal deformation analysis is executed to secure the fire resistance of the building.