June 25, 2025
207 - Fire Safety of Balconies with Mike Spearpoint and Konstantinos Chotzoglou
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As a consequence of the Grenfell Tower disaster, some strong legislation was proposed, such as a combustible ban on building walls. This, however, affected more than just the building facades, as it excluded materials such as laminated glass used as balcony balustrades.
Today, the path forward demands evidence that could inform decisions on the future of laminated glass in this use. In this conversation with Mike Spearpoint and Konstantinos Chotzoglou from OFR Consultants, we dive deep into their groundbreaking experimental research on balcony fire safety that emerged in response to the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Through experiments involving three-story balcony setups and multiple configurations, the team quantified how different materials and designs affect external fire spread between floors.
What makes this research particularly valuable is how it transforms gut feelings into measurable facts. The researchers tested various combinations of balustrade materials, decking options, and balcony contents to create a comprehensive picture of fire behaviour. Their findings confirmed some expectations while providing surprising insights into flame dynamics around balconies. Most importantly, they established a clear ranking of safety performance: from non-combustible systems and laminated glass (which performed remarkably well) to the dangerous combination of HPL panels with timber decking (which produced fires so intense they had to terminate testing).
The implications extend beyond regulatory compliance. This research empowers architects, engineers, and manufacturers to make evidence-based decisions about balcony design while maintaining the essential outdoor spaces people value in high-rise living. It demonstrates that with appropriate material selections and protective measures like non-combustible soffits, balconies can remain both safe and functional.
You can read the balcony survey paper here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10694-023-01467-8
A paper summarising three balcony fire incidents:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10694-021-01154-6
As more research is published, I will try to keep this up to date.
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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.
00:00 - Introduction to Balcony Fire Safety
04:19 - Origins of the Balcony Research Project
08:52 - Balconies as Fire Spread Pathways
21:39 - Experimental Setup and Design Challenges
28:49 - Test Variables and Baseline Experiment
35:10 - Key Findings and Material Performance
46:13 - Balcony Contents and Management Issues
54:10 - From Evidence to Regulation
59:39 - Closing Reflections and Future Research
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Hello everybody, welcome to the Fire Science Show.
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Today we have an episode on experimental fire science.
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We will be talking about a very impressive research project that was carried out by the OFR on the balconies, fire safety of balconies and, as I've been visiting them for their team's event and at some talks out there, it was a great conference.
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I also had the chance to steal Mike's viewpoint for a minute, along with his colleague, konstantinos Czozoglou, and sit down and discuss this magnificent project.
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So, yeah, I'm always traveling with my microphones.
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I saw a chance and I took it, and the outcome is the interview that you are about to hear.
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In this project they were tasked with identifying or providing evidence for fire safety or unsafety of balconies in relationship to laminated glass used as the balustrades of the balconies, but also in presence of timber deckings, in presence of combustible materials used on the balconies, and also to investigate the influence of the stuff that people have on their balconies on the general fire safety of the building and fire spread pathways.
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So indeed, quite a big research task and it's a very large project actually, if you think about it, it's a very large project In this podcast.
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What's interesting is the outcomes are not very shocking, so they've confirmed a lot that was suspected, but I guess that's a good thing.
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A great thing is that we've moved from opinions to evidence, which in lawmaking, which in professional fire safety engineering, is a critical thing.
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I think there will be more and more need to prove the obvious.
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The magic numbers don't really make it anymore.
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We need evidence, and evidence-based fire science is what we should strive for, and this is definitely what is presented in here.
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We will also discuss about some perhaps unexpected consequences of banning combustible materials.
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The reason how laminated glass got excluded from balconies Very interesting case.
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The reason how laminated glass got excluded from balconies very interesting case we will be talking about.
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How do you set up such a huge research program?
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What are the choices, what are the dilemmas of people running those programs?
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I make those podcasts so you understand the context of the research that's happening all the way around.
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You're not going to learn everything about balconies in here, and also there will be papers.
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There are papers where you can read it all the way around.
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You're not going to learn everything about balconies in here, and also there will be papers.
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There are papers where you can read it.
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But here you can learn why they've made this research choices and I think it's very interesting.
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And all this in this podcast episode.
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Mike Spearpoint, konstantinos Chosyoglou, please join us in this conversation on the balcony fire safety.
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Let's spin the intro and jump into the episode.
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Welcome to the Firesize Show.
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My name is Wojciech Wigrzyński and I will be your host.
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The FireSense Show is into its third year of continued support from its sponsor, ofr Consultants, who are an independent, multi-award-winning fire engineering consultancy with a reputation for delivering innovative, safety-driven solutions.
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As the UK-leading independent fire risk consultancy, ofr's globally established team have developed a reputation for preeminent fire engineering expertise, with colleagues working across the world to help protect people, property and the planet.
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If you're keen to find out more or join OFR Consultants during this exciting period of growth, visit their website at ofrconsultantscom.
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And now back to the episode a massive research project that you have completed on fire safety of balconies.
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But perhaps you better give me an introduction what the Balcony Project was about and can you give a two-minute overview of the ideas?
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Yeah, sure.
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So the project kind of came out from the tragic events of Grenfell Tower and in doing that, following the fire, the government in England introduced a ban on the use of combustible materials on the facade of buildings, and in doing that it also uh, looked um incorporate the fact that that would include elements fixed to the building, such such as balconies, and one of the products that was being used at the time on balconies was laminated glass, particularly with a pvb interlayer, and because of the fire performance of pvb and the way it might fall under euro class, it wasn't the non-combustible and so it was a kind of you might say a bit of an unintended consequence of a decision that was made.
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Who would have expected and look these things, these, these things happen because of the response to grenfell tower.
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And then, following uh, dame judith hackett's report, the government had a call for research projects, things, things that people felt that would need to be looked at, particularly to maybe update the guidance in approved document b, and in that call for evidence and call for research, the government identified a group of sort of a package of project which was called balconies, spandrels and laminated glass.
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So the project was then tasked at the outset to kind of look at the what might be the contribution on external fire spread of balconies and maybe I say maybe to look at this issue of the balustrade construction and whether the use of laminated glass on a balcony balustrade, how much it may or may not contribute to external fire spread.
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But it was going further than just the glass, it was more into that variety.
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Well, yeah, as the project developed and discussions with the client, then there were some interesting discussions around the timber deck or the decking material in timber, and there was quite a well-known fire prior to Grenfell Tower where a timber balcony on a building had quite a large fire.
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And then there was some discussion around other balustrade materials and in the during the project a fire happened.
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It wasn't particularly sort of landmark, but a fire occurred on a building in south london where there was a combination of a hpl panel system and a timber deck and the fire spread.
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It was a fairly low-rise building but spread to multiple balconies.
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So in the course of the project and discussions with the client a number of other parameters became of interest, other than just the question of the laminated glass balustrade.
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But there's a, you know, there's a sort of combination of materials that you might put in a balcony, and the other part of the project was also to look at, well, how much combustible fuel load does someone put on their balcony, because obviously that may also contribute to the project.
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So it had a sort of number of aspects that we tried to package together.
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Just to add on this a bit of the background.
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In the UK the balconies are considered as attachments according to the latest guidance, so they are attachments to the external wall.
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So regulation treats balconies as the external wall nowadays, and that's why we have this project as well, because, finally, any materials, as Mike mentioned, like whether it is timber, whether it is HPL, all these materials actually may have an impact, and not only on the balcony itself but also on the external wall, which is one of the main hazards anyway.
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I think you told me that people are expected to build balconies in tall buildings, that it's an expected feature of a building to have one.
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Yeah, so there's things like the London Plan, which is a kind of planning guidance documents that use for construction in London, and in that there is an expectation that people in a high-rise building have an outside space.
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I mean, you kind of think of the time of COVID and that people were wanting some kind of outside space.
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And of course, if you've got a high-rise building, yes, you could walk down the stairs and maybe there's a park nearby, but the balcony provides you with an out your own private, generally a private outside space.
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So there is a, you know, as part of the utility of buildings in terms of the general use, providing facilities for people to have an outside space is seen is seen something as part of sort of planning guidance.
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In those fires that you've mentioned, was the spread of the fire kind of traced to the balconies, like, were balconies determined as some sort of causal factor of the fire spread in the building?
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Well, definitely the fire on the timber balcony, that fire, given it was constructed of timber balustrade, timber decking, that that would clear clearly.
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Uh, the, the construction of the balcony was, was the major contributor.
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Some other fires, this one in south london, again there was a question about which I mean obviously the fire spread between balconies so clearly there was fire spread.
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The wall itself was, was pretty much non-combustible, so the wall had no contribution.
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You can see pictures afterwards.
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There's essentially a bit of smoke, flame and damage, but there's no wall contribute so clearly.
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The balcony, in that case, in terms of the items the, the balustrade, the decking and the content spread fire.
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There are other fires and one of my colleagues, a guy called jamie clark, has been looking at where we got fires that have been reported by fire brigades and they have reported fire spread between balconies and maybe there's a sense of what maybe the wall construction might have been and what the contents would be.
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Sometimes it's it's not always clear how much the balcony was a contributor over and above any other element in the building.
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So sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it it's not so clear cut but at least it's a suspected pathway.
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Okay, and but for me, a balcony like I'm a user of a balcony, very happy user of a balcony one thing is is the structure, how you build balcony, what are the components of the balcony, and the other thing is what people keep on their balconies, and from my observations it can be quite a scatter.
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Yeah, indeed, and this is what we had many discussions on the project for this purpose, like, what do we include on the investigation at the end of the day, because we need to be somehow realistic In many countries, for example, they use a complete concrete structure for the balcony, so it's part of the overall structure of the building.
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However, you can see, like in the UK at least, there are many balconies which are fit after a post, let's say construction, as actually I must say attachments I use the word of attachments or you can have like different structure, like a metallic structure as well, maybe stacked balconies in which the investigation in one of the fires was actually shown that the balconies were stuck on top of the other using a metallic structure.
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So we had a lot of discussion on that.
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What we include finally and Mike mentioned as well one of the contributing factors is indeed the contents.
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How do we measure that and how do we quantify this?
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And there is work done previously.
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There is a survey.
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Mike, I think you can tell more on the survey Part of that project was to get an understanding of how much combustible content people might put on their balcony.
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And if you look in the literature there's very little data.
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I mean there's lots of data.
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People have done all sorts of surveys of combustible contents inside buildings, but very, very little.
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We did find some work that had been done in Japan where it was part of a sort of bigger project.
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So particularly my colleague, sam Bryan from the Edinburgh office, did a survey looking at 1,000 balconies it was actually during COVID, so even the idea of accessing balconies, but we could use Google Street View and she looked at over 1,000 balconies, assessed each balcony in terms of the content potentially Did it have plant pots on?
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And she assumed they were all plastic.
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Did it have some kind of furniture?
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Did it have clothes, people drying clothes and whatever, and from there she could do a statistical analysis of a 90th percentile fuel load.
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She also assessed how much of it might have been cellulosic, how much it might have been plastic and what the dimensions of the balcony might be, and so we could use that to then separate the question of the of the materials to construct the balcony versus the things that me people might put on the balcony.
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So now, whenever I'm in a city, I'm always looking up at balconies, going, oh look, they've got, they've got, they've got that on their balcony.
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And look at another one, go, there's all that.
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One's quite empty.
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So now I can't stop looking at balconies and assessing how much fire load there might be watch out if dr spearpoint is in your town because your balcony is being observed and assessed.
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I would like to move to the experimental part, but I still have to tie one more thing because, uh, again the contents of the balcony.
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That truly makes sense to me, but that laminated glass is such an odd issue.
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Can you tell me why exactly, like you said that it doesn't have the glass?
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But what is the known behavior of laminated glass in fire, like before the project?
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Not perhaps what you found intermediately in the project?
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Yeah, so there's been some work on laminated glass.
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I mean, as part of the work we did a little history of laminated glass from its original conception around about the early turn of the century.
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It was a French guy and I think it was sort of discovered by accident and it started off particularly in things like the automotive industry.
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So it was the time when people were putting glass in vehicle windows.
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And then you find, particularly during the second world war, the fighter and bomber planes and that, and then it became a product that we used in construction and there has been some work done on the performance of glass.
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Pretty certain one of your podcasts you've had you want yes, that's right.
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So so you know, it's been a product, it's been around and there's been other researchers I think there's a paper with Michael Klassen on that and they looked at some different laminated glass products and there's quite a bit of work on glass, single-pane float glass.
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There was stuff that was done at Holster many years ago, there was stuff that was done by Skelly and there's some others, but it was was.
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You know, like a lot of these topics, there was some work and we'd done a little bit ourselves, sort of even before we got this project.
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We actually um, got some laminated glass and we and we went up to the lab at the university of edinburgh and did a few initial sort of investigations, trying some stuff.
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And and particularly my colleague ewan who had finished his phd, they had set up the h tris and we could use that and we and we've done some stuff there.
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So there was some work around in the literature and so there was an understanding somewhat about the performance of there's different laminates within.
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You can put within the glass pvb, eva, um, sgp.
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So there was some work on that.
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It was, you know, like many things in fire science there's not a thousand papers on it.
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But if I understand correctly, it's just a really thin layer of foil that keeps the pieces of glass.
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It's not like an intermediate sandwich of acrylic into pieces of glass.
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How big is that foil?
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The thing is that, as you mentioned earlier, at the end of the day, for regulatory purposes, it cannot achieve the class needed for the regulation.
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So even though, yes, indeed, it is like very thin layering between the two panes, you can have like a description of how it behaves and everything, but at the end you cannot use it, at least after this ban, although it has been for many years in construction in the UK as well, like everywhere in the world.
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It has been used a lot, also on balconies, you see, if you see like balconies use a lot of balustrades made of glass.
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So, yes, indeed, there is some research, but at the end, our target, our investigation, was how we incorporate this laminated glass into balconies, how is it incorporated in reality, and whether this actually plays a role on the fire spread, on the, on the dynamics during a fire but to answer your question in terms of the thickness, I mean typical laminated glasses you might see on balustrades the glass, the two.
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I mean we're looking at two layers of glass sort of in the eight, ten, twelve millimeter thick and then the, the interlayer, normally sort of two millimeters actually, maybe a bit less than that.
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So you know, as a proportion, I mean I cut what two, one, one and a half mil of interlayer.
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Some interlayers might be a bit thicker, the cast in place type products, as I remember, the interlayer might be thicker just because of the manufacturing process.
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But in terms of the proportion, I mean obviously you've got, so if you've got, two layers of 10 mil glass plus the two of that, and it's what's that sort of 10%?
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Yeah, all right, 10%, yeah, that sort of number.
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I mean obviously, obviously it doesn't sound like a big fire issue.
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Uh, I mean, okay, if it was a thicker layer, like like in the sandwich panels, and then it's a different story.
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But because that's a lot of fuel on something that peels off, but as a part of the glass, we also know that it, when shut, as it stays in the same place, it doesn't, uh, crush into a million pieces that fall off, if I understand yeah, I mean that's the purpose of the laminated glass.
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So we've obviously got a potential for the glass to break just in normal use.
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Someone might crack, knock something into it and the glass can break.
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And I and I found a paper from the night around about 1970s, 1980s, published by someone who worked in a hospital and was showing talking about the fact at that point it was monolithic glass which would break, and there's some not very jolly photographs to look at of people's arms sliced open and that.
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And this author was saying this is you know, this stuff, we can't have glass and allowing it to fall and that.
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But there's laminated glass.
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So why, you know, we should be using laminated glass?
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Because it prevents this, these terrible lacerations that people gain.
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So so it performs a, you know, has a safety benefit, obviously that you know the fire is part of it, but it has other reasons why we might use it and again, it's a safety benefit because of that, day-to-day things just get knocked into it and and that in itself presents a hazard and it was one of our thoughts, let's say, during the project, that when it breaks, what happens when it breaks during a fire, and whether actually another thing was on the intermediate layer, the PVB or whatever it is, if it melts, how it melts internally, and whether this can create some other hazard as well.
00:19:26.809 --> 00:19:35.972
So, yes, indeed there is a lot of work done, but in a bigger, let's say, picture how all these little details, let's say, can play a role in a balcony fire.
00:19:41.059 --> 00:19:42.061
Okay, so let's move to the experimental onset.
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It's always difficult to present those in a podcast material, so you give me the outline and I'll try to recap and summarize.
00:19:46.550 --> 00:19:50.025
But how did the research plan look like?
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So, first of all, how did you intend to test it Like?
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What was the experimental plan in terms of the facility and in terms of the experimental setup?
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And secondly, what were the variables that you were looking into?
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Perhaps let's cover the experiment first.
00:20:07.230 --> 00:20:14.040
Okay, I mean the intention of the experiment ultimately was to do some full scale balcony fire spread.
00:20:14.040 --> 00:20:27.667
But in before we wanted to do that, we wanted to get a bit more of a particularly an understanding of laminated glass and the different combinations of glass thickness, laminate type, exposure conditions or different heat fluxes.
00:20:27.667 --> 00:20:31.400
So the first part of the project is we did a whole series of experiments.
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The guys at the effectus lab in northern ireland set up a radiant panel system and we looked at a sort of you might say a parametric study.
00:20:39.625 --> 00:20:41.148
So many of these variables.
00:20:41.148 --> 00:20:54.740
So we had different glass thicknesses, different laminate types, different exposure conditions because we wanted to try and choose a reasonably conservative representative of the glass we're going to put on the full-scale balconies.
00:20:54.740 --> 00:21:06.482
We didn't have the resources to build full-scale balconies and look at a whole range of different combinations of glass, and so that was the first part and then from that we used that to help us develop the full-scale experiments.
00:21:06.482 --> 00:21:08.945
Use that to help us develop the four-scale experiments.
00:21:09.086 --> 00:21:22.527
And then we had also some input, of course, from industry, because it would be, let's say, a waste of money, a waste of resources to use something which will never be on a typical, realistic, let's say, balcony design.
00:21:22.527 --> 00:21:24.226
So we had this input as well.
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We had the results from the small-scale experiments that we did and then we ended up on the large-scale, which took like months and months to design.
00:21:34.281 --> 00:21:37.148
But anyway, that was the hard part of this project.
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I think we ended up with trying to see, okay, which scenario we are starting with.
00:21:42.046 --> 00:21:51.792
So for us it was developed fire internally, the flames come out from an opening or so and then we have the flames ejecting on the balcony area.
00:21:51.792 --> 00:22:01.567
So we started from that point and therefore we had to choose what type of fire design we do, what type of fire we have.
00:22:01.567 --> 00:22:09.710
So we ended up with the BS8414 crib source, which was it's something which is used a lot, it's something which is used on the testing for external wall systems.
00:22:09.710 --> 00:22:16.347
So we thought like, okay, we know what to expect, we have measured the heat, we know what to expect from the crib itself.
00:22:16.347 --> 00:22:22.067
So it represents probably a scenario that we wish to have on these large-scale experiments.
00:22:22.067 --> 00:22:28.780
And then we said okay, now it's time to work on the balcony itself, on the structure of the balcony.
00:22:29.040 --> 00:22:30.163
Yeah, so we ended up with a.
00:22:30.163 --> 00:22:34.393
In terms of the structure, we ended up with a stacked balcony arrangement and this reproduced.
00:22:34.413 --> 00:22:34.753
How many?
00:22:35.201 --> 00:22:43.587
So essentially three balconies, so the floor of the lab kind of represented Balcony number one, balcony number one or balcony zero.
00:22:43.587 --> 00:22:51.990
Then we had the 8414 combustion chamber which we raised up compared with the normal, the normal test setup so it was.
00:22:52.441 --> 00:23:16.700
It was just underneath the next balcony, so balcony one, and then we had, we had, balcony two but by chamber you mean it's like this one meter deep, like two and a half wide, something tall yeah, it's a standard just a small chamber in which you put this massive, massive wood crib and then you expect all the flame to go out yes, exactly I assume in your experiment it projects on onto the balcony directly yeah, and on the underside of the balcony.
00:23:17.280 --> 00:23:20.167
So so we've got, we've got three balconies, so zero one.
00:23:20.167 --> 00:23:21.490
Two we were.
00:23:21.490 --> 00:23:26.548
You know, there was an element, we because the if the guys that affect us in the lab, we've got a calorimeter.
00:23:26.548 --> 00:23:32.704
We could put the whole setup under the calorimeter measure, heat release, which is, you know, fairly unique to be able to do that.
00:23:32.704 --> 00:23:37.201
But obviously, like anything we've got lab, there's only so much height in the lab.
00:23:37.541 --> 00:23:43.785
We wanted to represent, obviously, a spacing between each floor of the building, the balcony to balcony.
00:23:43.785 --> 00:23:46.817
So there was obviously discussion about what that should be.
00:23:46.817 --> 00:24:02.250
We wanted to represent a kind of residential building but we wanted to use a, you know sort of a lower height or a shorter distance, because we wanted to challenge obviously, if we put the balconies further and further apart, it makes it less likely for fire spread.
00:24:02.250 --> 00:24:02.892
So we chose.
00:24:02.892 --> 00:24:04.304
But we wanted to be realistic.
00:24:04.304 --> 00:24:08.602
Right, you know, there's no point putting making the balconies one meter high because no one to do that.
00:24:08.602 --> 00:24:33.041
So there's always that, there's always those discussions I say compromises, but but somewhat is a compromise trying to work obviously around the lab, what the lab can do, what is realistic, what is reasonably conservative, and all those discussions at the end, when you are limited with from resources, you need to make decisions and all these decisions need to have, like, some thought behind and some compromise.
00:24:33.182 --> 00:24:44.343
obviously, as Mike said, the main thing was what's the distance between the opening and the balcony right above, so the underside of the balcony and that was one of the main things I discussed.
00:24:44.343 --> 00:24:50.266
We ended up with some specific distance that we thought it was realistic and it also followed some of the literature review we did.
00:24:50.266 --> 00:24:56.309
So we wanted to be as much as possible, let's say, in line with some literature we found on that.
00:24:56.309 --> 00:25:00.500
And, of course, as Mike said, we wanted to look on the balconies themselves.
00:25:00.500 --> 00:25:03.349
So we decided to have a non-combustible facade.
00:25:03.349 --> 00:25:09.269
So the projection of the flames would affect, let's say, only the balconies themselves, not the facade.
00:25:09.269 --> 00:25:18.782
So we had boards calcium silicate boards on the facade, extending both the combustion chamber of the BS8414, let's say, the standard combustion chamber.
00:25:18.903 --> 00:25:22.089
And you mentioned some specific structural challenges.
00:25:22.089 --> 00:25:25.105
Mike, can you tell me more about where the balconies?
00:25:25.105 --> 00:25:26.669
Did you use some attachment systems?
00:25:26.669 --> 00:25:28.240
How did you attach them to the wall?
00:25:28.481 --> 00:25:33.811
In the end, we used a stacked balcony system rather than using them as an attachment.
00:25:33.811 --> 00:25:34.814
So what does it mean?
00:25:34.814 --> 00:25:39.731
Well, I mean there was firstly some practical questions.
00:25:39.731 --> 00:25:41.409
So we were a little bit concerned.
00:25:41.409 --> 00:25:45.869
If we used an attached balcony, we didn't know how severe the fire was going to be.
00:25:45.869 --> 00:25:50.672
We might have got failure of that and have to replace it each test.
00:25:51.160 --> 00:25:51.521
That would be fun.
00:25:51.541 --> 00:25:53.770
We might have got failure of that and have to replace it each test and, as you know, running a lab.
00:25:53.770 --> 00:25:55.036
All that takes a lot of time.
00:25:55.036 --> 00:25:56.444
It costs a lot of money.
00:25:57.541 --> 00:25:59.067
There are health and safety issues as well.
00:25:59.067 --> 00:26:03.230
We wanted to make sure that there is nothing internally in the lab.
00:26:03.661 --> 00:26:08.119
And, of course, and also different suppliers of boundaries, of different attachment systems.
00:26:08.119 --> 00:26:11.071
So in the end, if we were going to do it that way, we'd have to choose one, and this was not an assessment of an attachment systems.
00:26:11.071 --> 00:26:17.906
So in the end, if we were going to do it that way, we'd have to choose one, and this was not an assessment of an attachment system from a particular supplier.
00:26:17.906 --> 00:26:23.789
So we end up with a stacked balcony arrangement, which pretty much represented the fire that happened in South London.
00:26:23.789 --> 00:26:35.166
But there was practical reasons that meant we could have pretty good confidence that we could do the series of tests without having failure of the balconies and a lot more time and expense doing it.
00:26:35.166 --> 00:26:42.028
So again, it was a compromise that says it does represent a balcony system that we see on real buildings.
00:26:42.028 --> 00:26:46.707
No, it doesn't exactly test the performance of an attached balcony.
00:26:47.147 --> 00:26:55.194
yeah, you know I mean, we probably spend more time than necessary discussing those things in the podcast and I'm not so sure if it's super exciting to the listeners.
00:26:55.194 --> 00:27:04.662
But I find this element of discussion critical so that people who are not laboratory researchers they understand the way how the job is done.
00:27:04.662 --> 00:27:12.181
You know, because if you look from a side on any research project, you can pick up a hundred things that someone could have done differently.
00:27:12.181 --> 00:27:17.300
And even in our research we were getting oh this is a stupid, why have you done that?
00:27:17.300 --> 00:27:18.983
You should have done something else.
00:27:18.983 --> 00:27:23.421
And in the end it's all choices and ultimately you have to have one.
00:27:23.421 --> 00:27:24.604
You have to choose something.
00:27:25.185 --> 00:27:30.144
You're not really usually in a position where you can increase the parametric space of your tests.
00:27:30.144 --> 00:27:48.211
I I mean, of course you probably would love to test also an attached balconies and perhaps different types of attached balconies, but if you're already running a project that costs a lot of money and tripling it or quadrupling it just to add a variable is difficult.
00:27:48.211 --> 00:27:49.886
I sympathize with this.
00:27:49.886 --> 00:27:55.026
And also when you mentioned balcony falling in the lab, I would not like that in my lab.
00:27:55.400 --> 00:27:57.428
Yeah, there's expense, but there's also the time right.
00:27:57.428 --> 00:28:04.790
So the longer the more, the bigger you make the test matrix, the longer it's going to take, and people are wanting to be able to update guidance to things.
00:28:04.790 --> 00:28:15.406
So, you know, there's an element of timeliness and even this project is taken from it, it's an initial funding agreement to to where we are now.
00:28:15.406 --> 00:28:19.943
It's taken, you know, several years and and in industry, and that, of course, there's a desire to be able to resolve these things.
00:28:19.943 --> 00:28:26.969
You know and I appreciate that somewhat, that people are keen to hear what the results are and and what might be the response to it.
00:28:26.969 --> 00:28:34.048
But unfortunately, you know, I would love to wade the magic wand and say we can do it all in a day and we can do it for tuppence-half a knee.
00:28:34.160 --> 00:28:37.726
Do a lot more, check a lot more factors, a lot more parameters.
00:28:37.726 --> 00:28:42.826
It would be ideal, but at the end we ended up with eight tests and I think it was like a lot.
00:28:42.826 --> 00:28:45.280
Considering all these factors that we had to look at.
00:28:45.342 --> 00:28:49.367
It was a lot of Maybe let's go to the experimental matrix actually.
00:28:49.367 --> 00:28:55.631
So what kind of variables you were looking into between those sets of experiments, like what was maybe?
00:28:55.631 --> 00:28:58.146
Let's start with the baseline what was your baseline experiment?
00:28:58.146 --> 00:29:00.929
And then what has changed in the subsequent experiments?
00:29:01.240 --> 00:29:01.421
Yeah.
00:29:01.421 --> 00:29:13.541
So the baseline experiment was to take the 8414 crib, have a non-combustible balcony floors, have no balustrade, and what we want to do there is get a characterization.
00:29:13.541 --> 00:29:17.009
Now, as constantina says, we've got a really good handle on.
00:29:17.009 --> 00:29:24.561
If you put an eight, four, one, four crib, have a facade, non-combustible facade, so so what happens if you put the balcony projection there?
00:29:24.561 --> 00:29:25.284
What so?
00:29:25.284 --> 00:29:29.760
We had heat flux gauges, we had thermocouples and obviously we had heat release.
00:29:29.760 --> 00:29:35.893
We also had mass loss, although unfortunately the the load cell fires were quite severe and it got damaged.
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