Madrid Fire Survey Finds Concrete Performed 'Extraordinarily Well'.A survey of the fire damaged structure of the Windsor Tower This article is about the tower in Madrid, Spain. For the building in Detroit, Michigan, United States, see The Windsor Tower. The Windsor Tower (in Spanish Torre Windsor) was built in 1979 in the financial center of Madrid, Spain. , Madrid, has concluded that the concrete structure "performed extraordinarily well in a severe fire". The study, 'Fire in the Windsor building, Madrid: Survey of the fire resistance and residual bearing capacity of the structure after the fire' was carried out by the Spanish Instituto Technico de Materiales y Construcciones (INTEMAC). It underlined the need for fireproofing fireproofing, method of making normally combustible materials as nearly noncombustible as possible. Fireproofing generally applies to textiles and construction materials that are treated with a solution or coating of some substance that will tend to retard their structural steel concluding that the "need for fireproofing of steel members to guarantee their performance in the event of fire was reconfirmed". The Windsor Tower fire started on the 21st floor of the 32 storey building in February 2005. The fire quickly spread due to a lack of fire stops between the curtain wall curtain wall Nonbearing wall of glass, metal, or masonry attached to a building's exterior structural frame. After World War II, low energy costs gave impetus to the concept of the tall building as a glass prism, an idea originally put forth by Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies facade facade (fəsäd`), exterior face or wall of a building. The term implies ordered placement of its openings and other features and thus seems inapplicable to a wall without design. and the concrete floor slabs. Designed and built in the 1970s, the tower was built using traditional design methods. Extensive refurbishment re·fur·bish tr.v. re·fur·bished, re·fur·bish·ing, re·fur·bish·es To make clean, bright, or fresh again; renovate. re·fur was underway at the time of the fire. Ironically, part of the refurbishment programme was to bring the building's fire standards up-to-date with the installation of active fire prevention and resistance measures. Structural failure happened with the collapse of the steel perimeter The boundary of a system or network, which defines the inside and outside. It is typically determined by firewalls and addresses. See DMZ. columns which resulted with the floor slabs collapsing as the edge support was taken away. The massive concrete transfer slab at the 20th floor prevented further progressive failure. "The survey by INTEMAC found that the internal structural concrete columns and core performed extremely well", said Andrew Minson, head of structural frame at The Concrete Centre. "The tower was undergoing a refurbishment programme that included fireproofing. However, the survey found that even where this had been carried out, the fireproofing was observed to have 'performed very unevenly with total or partial flaking on the lower wing or the web of several of the beams' ". The Concrete Centre is funding further research into the behaviour of the tower's concrete structure at the University of Edinburgh (body, education) University of Edinburgh - A university in the centre of Scotland's capital. The University of Edinburgh has been promoting and setting standards in education for over 400 years. . This will help to extend further the understanding of concrete's high performance in fires. Footnote Text that appears at the bottom of a page that adds explanation. It is often used to give credit to the source of information. When accumulated and printed at the end of a document, they are called "endnotes." The Concrete Centre is the central market development organisation for the [pounds sterling]5 billion UK concrete sector. The Centre works in the interests of all those involved in concrete design and construction. It focuses on design and construction methods, education and training, research, new product and process development and the performance of concrete in practice. It works closely with other well-established cement and concrete bodies in the UK. Please Note: The views expressed by our contributors are not necessarily those of CJ Connect, Contract Journal or Mondaq Ltd. ConDialogue London UNITED KINGDOM Click Here for related articles (c) Mondaq Ltd, 2006 - Tel. +44 (0)20 8544 8300 - http://www.mondaq.com |
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