Knowledge about Fire Door
2010-10-20

A fire door is a door with a fire-resistance rating (sometimes referred to as a fire protection rating for closures) used as part of a passive fire protection system to reduce the spread of fire or smoke between compartments and to enable safe egress from a building or structure or ship. In North American building codes, it, along with fire dampers, is often referred to as a closure, which can be derated compared against the fire separation that contains it, provided that this barrier is not a firewall or an occupancy separation.

What is the fire door? The fire door, as a fire protection system, is mainly used to protect people far away from fire or smoke.

How the fire door can resist fire’s attack? The fire door is made of special material, such as: timber, steel,gypsum, vermiculite-boards, glass sections and so on. To resist smoke, the edges of a fire door usually need to have fire rated seals. And the door’s edge often is consiste of part as follows:An intumescent strip, which expands when exposed to heat,Neoprene weatherstripping,Gaskets to prevent the passage of smoke

When intumescent seals are used in the door design, use of the correct seal is crucial in the fire rating performance the door assembly. Seals may vary in chemical composition, expansion rate, expansion volume, and/or charring characteristics.

Besides that, for fire door relates to safety. All components are required to adhere to product certification requirements that are acceptable to the local Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) by meeting the requirements of the local building code and fire code. The regulatory requirement will change from country to country.

For example in the United Kingdom a fire resisting doorset should be subjected to either a British Standard Fire Test BS 476 Part 22 1987, or a BS/EN 1634-1 2000 test. The results are recorded by the test agency and provided in a report which detail such things as constructional details, distortion data and pressure readings. The numerical fire resistance rating that is required to be installed in a particular building is provided in the Building Regulations approved Document B, or British Standards such as the BS 5588 series (e.g., 30 minutes FD30, or FD30(S) if cold smoke resistance is also required). Similar technical guidance documents and building regulations are in effect in other countries.

Here, maybe you will ask me whether the fire door is noncombustible or not.The answer is: Fire doors are not necessarily noncombustible. It is acceptable for portions of the door to be destroyed by combustion during exposure to a fire as long as the door assembly meets the fire test criteria of limiting temperature limits on the non-fire side of the assembly. So the fire door just can protect people away from fire in short times. If unfortunately the fire happens, the first thing people should do is trying to escaping from the fire, other than just pin their hope on the fire door.