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Fire Protection Engineering for Facilities

Bijan GhayourPE


Course Outline

This 6-hour course provides a technical basis, and an understanding of the various issues involved in the design and engineering of fire protection system for industrial, commercial, and government facilities. The course establishes minimum protection requirements and criteria for above facilities. These criteria are based on commercial requirements set forth by national insurance and may exceed minimum national code requirements. The requirements in this course reflect the need for the protection of life, mission, and property while taking into account the cost of implementing the criterion and risks associated with the facility. The course materials are based entirely on the Department of Defense Unified Facilities Criteria, UFC 3-600-01 “FIRE PROTECTION ENGINEERING FACILITIES” dated March 2013.

This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of the course materials.

Learning Objective

The purpose of this course is to provide the attendee with concepts, methods and procedures for the design and engineering of fire protection systems in industrial, commercial, and government facilities.

At the conclusion of the course the attendees will be familiar with the:

Intended Audience

This course is intended for electrical engineers and designer responsible for the design of fire protection systems for industrial, commercial, institutional, and government facilities. Projects involving the design or modification of, fire rated construction, fire detection, fire suppression, or life safety systems require the services and review of a qualified fire protection engineer.

Benefit to Attendees

At the conclusion of the course, attendees will have a thorough knowledge of the issues and main topics associated in the design of fire protection systems for different facilities. The course offers many theoretical and practical guidelines, and various examples in the design of fire protection systems for facilities.

Course Introduction

Main topics and issues involved in the design of fire protection systems are discussed and explained. Subjects such as basic design criteria, types of construction, separation between buildings, building height limitations, insulation, roof covering and roof deck assemblies, fire department (emergency) vehicle access, fire and smoke dampers, water distribution systems, automatic sprinkler systems, water spray systems, dry chemical extinguishing  and carbon dioxide systems, wet chemical extinguishing systems, fire alarm detection and reporting systems, are discussed.
The course also includes fire protection requirements for multi-family housing, high rise buildings, detection and correction facilities, libraries, telecommunication rooms and buildings, warehouse and storage facilities, storage of flammable and hazardous material and hazardous waste, petroleum fuel facilities, underground structures, elevator machine rooms and hoistways, and medical facilities are discussed.

Guidance and recommendations herein are based on standards and codes of: National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), Society of Fire Protection Engineers, Underwriters Laboratory (UL), American National Standards, ASME International, American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), Factory Mutual Global (FM), and industry standards and experience in existing facilities. However, projects and situations vary greatly, and sound engineering and management judgment must be exercised when applying these methods and guidelines. All available information must be considered in conjunction with this course.

Course Content

You are required to study, United Facilities Criteria UFC 3-600-01, dated September of 2006 and March of 2013, of the Department of Defense. For an electronic copy of UFC 3-600-01 please refer to the link below:

United Facilities Criteria UFC 3-600-01

Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you still experience any difficulty in downloading or opening this file, you may need to close some applications or reboot your computer to free up some memory.

Course Summary

This course contains concepts and methods for the design of fire protection systems in industrial, commercial, and government facilities.

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.

DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.