Calibration of the equivalent time of fire exposure according to the Spanish building code

Abstract

Current tendency in regulation is that of adoptingperformance based codes where targets are establishedwithout demanding them to be reached in a certain way. In theapplication of this kind of codes, the designer must prove that,by means of his suggested solution, prearranged protectionlevels are reached or overcome. In the Spanish TechnicalBuilding Code the method of the Equivalent Time of FireExposure is given as a simplified alternative method to theprescriptive tables of minimal time of resistance demanded tothe structure of a building. In this work this method is appliedto different examples of buildings in order to extractconclusions on the suitability of its application.