Improving Safety in the Design of Buildings in the UK - Research Proposal Example

Running Header: Proposal on safety in design (UK) Your name: Course name: Professors’ name: Date TITLE: Improving the safety in design of buildings in the UK AIM: The aim of this proposal is to recommend better strategies of mitigating fire accidents in a building by taking a holistic approach to all fire strategies with respect to the outlined British building standards. OBJECTIVES: i. Identification of the major causes of fire accidents in the design of buildings including the spread by smoke leakage, thermal insulation and integrity condition. ii. Investigation of the strategies that have been adopted by architects to prevent fire occurrences and spread. iii. Analysis of thermal actions on buildings based on fire experiments in relation to the layout of the section of the building and the related fire load. iv. Ways of improving fire prevention strategies in a building by analyzing all possible failure modes which agree with the figures relevant and also fire safety objectives according to the British Standards. v. Incorporating exit path of disabled people in the event of a fire. CONTENT: The reason for the study This study is inspired by the need to ensure safety of building occupants. Fire has been a major cause of deaths in buildings not only in the United Kingdom but all over the world. In order to mitigate the number of deaths and injuries as a result of fire breakout, better fire strategies ought to be established and enforced. The Worsley Hotel fire in London on the 13th December 1974 resulted in death of seven people. In this incident, it was discovered that after the fire was ignited, one of the building occupants found the fire extinguisher but did not use it because of he did not know how to use the equipment. The easy spread of fire in the upper floors contributed to the death of the six residents of the building. Another recent incident in the United Kingdom is the 2009 Lakanal House tower block. In this incident six people lost their lives while about twenty suffered serious injuries. The cause of the fire according to investigators revealed that despite the early warnings that the Lakal House was a major risk as it could enhance fire spread if one of its flats caught fire; its planned demolition was halted in 1999 for unknown reasons. This study thus aims at spearheading fire prevention strategies in buildings in order to eliminate any future similar incidences. This study also aims at determining ways of considering disabled people safety in the event of a fire (Turner Publishing Company, 2000). Issues to be investigated This study focuses on establishing the major causes of fires in relation to the design of the buildings; the focus in this case will be to establish the major smoke leakage, thermal investigations as well as the integrity condition. Smoke leakage is usually the failure of an important element responsible for preventing gases or smoke from passing from one side to another side of the other. This is usually caused by the failure of proper standardization procedure for alternative fire exposure conditions. Thermal investigation is the ability to separate element from fire exposure as well as reduce the effect of conduction to the unexposed side which could result in spread of fire and hence injuring people. Integrity means the ability of separating function of the construction element in order to withstand fire exposure from one side with minimal passage of large amount of flames and hot gases to the side which is not exposed (Rasbash, Ramachandran, & Kandola, 2004). This study also aims to investigate thermal actions on buildings by exploiting the available fire experiments with consideration of the section of the building with respect to related fire load. This will help to enhance the design of a building capable of withstanding thermal passage of fire from one section to another. By analyzing the available strategies and standards available in the UK, this will be important in the sense that better strategies of mitigating fire spread can be improved from the already existing mechanisms. Another imperative issue to be investigated in this study is the ways of improving fire strategies in buildings by closer analysis of failure modes with respect to available figures and also better safety strategies in accordance to the British standards. Incorporating exit path for disabled persons will also be an important consideration in this study. This is because previous constructions strategies and fire prevention strategies failed to recognize the need to include in their construction process disabled people. Tentative chapter headings Chapter 1 Executive summary Background information Introduction Chapter 2 Literature review analysis Chapter 3 Identification of major causes of fires in the design of buildings Analysis of effects of smoke leakage Analysis of thermal insulation Analysis of integrity condition Chapter 4 Investigation of strategies that have adopted to mitigate fire occurrence and spread Chapter 5 Analysis of thermal action in buildings based on experiments Ways of improving fire prevention strategies with consideration of British Standards The need to incorporate exist strategies for disabled people Chapter 6 Data analysis Discussion Chapter 6 Recommendation Chapter 7 Conclusion METHODOLODY: Sources of data This study will use both secondary and primary sources of data as discussed below, notably as a norm, a thorough research of the secondary data will be conducted in order to establish if there will be undertake a primary research. Secondary data source Usage of secondary data in this study will be particularly useful in the sense that secondary data can be easily completed in a faster rate as compared to primary sources. In general, it normally takes approximately two to three weeks; a skillful analyst can collect substantial and useful data in a few days. More so with the availability of secondary data, the researcher only needs to extract information relevant to the research and in this case safety design in buildings. The source of secondary data includes the following; Government statistics Online archives Annual reports of design Online libraries Syndicated services British design and regulations department Academic publications Primary data source Primary sources of data are normally expensive but also important since it backs up the available secondary data information. Primary data includes the written, interviews, recordings painting, emails correspondence and even web pages (McConnell & Hurban, 2007). In this research the primary data that will be used once the secondary data has been exploited includes; Diaries and journals of design of infrastructure and buildings. Original maps Memoirs Opinions of experts and consultants Minutes of meetings related to fire events on buildings Vital record such as private and public records Recent e-mail archives, documents and other materials relevant to the study Regulatory bodies and other laws governing the construction of buildings in the United Kingdom. Methods to be adopted for collecting information and data There are several considerations that should be taken into account prior undertaking data collection process. Data collection is the process of gathering information to address the critical evaluation questions identified in the objectives of the study. Since there are many methods of data collection and also wide variety of sources of information, the most essential thing will be to select the most appropriate method of data collection that will ensure that one acquires information that addresses the objective of the research. It is thus important to plan data collection methods by considering the questions to be answered with respect to the available information sources. More so, it would be essential to start thinking ahead on how the information will be organized and, analyzed and interpreted before reporting. In this research, the available sources of data have been identified as primary and secondary, in general they will be categorized as descriptive and judgmental information sources (Great Britain: Department of Health: Estates and Facilities Division, 2007). Descriptive information sources include; Project characteristics Project accomplishment reports Amount of audience participation Policies concerning design of fire safety buildings Rules and regulations regarding the design of buildings and infrastructure Types of participants Demographic data Judgmental information will include; Experts and consultants opinions Technical interpretations of the buildings governing laws in the UK Stakeholders perceptions Methods of data collection Methods of data collection will be balanced with a number of concerns including: credibility, available resources and analysis and reporting resources. The following methods of data collection will be expected to be used: Opinion Survey- This will target to establish how a given group or person feels about the safety of design in UK buildings. This will also include expert architects. Case Studies- Because of the nature of this study, there are past studies that have been done in relation of buildings safety in the UK especially with regard to fire safety. The experiences of these groups selected will be fruitful in the sense that they will provide a good source of information relevant to the objectives of the research. Focused groups- The essence of this information collection method is high level of confidence with the information gathered since it will be narrowed to the experts in safety of buildings and their discussion will be useful in that it will contribute to the ideas that will be analyzed and provided as recommendations when reporting the research process. Questionnaires- As a traditional method of collecting data, this method will be used to collect both the public and the experts’ opinion about fire safety strategies in the UK. Experiment- This will be a good method of data collection especially in this study since it provides cause-and-effect relationship that a researcher will be trying to understand. Since the study will be controlled in the sense that the researcher will be able to manage how subjects are assigned to groups and how treatments of each group will be carried out. The expected methods of data analysis Data analysis tries to organize and unorganized data in order to obtain useful information, it is usually a tedious process because it involves working on data through processing in order to comprehend what the data presents. Normally data analysis depends on the nature of the data; there can be qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Qualitative will usually not involve numerals while quantitative will involve analysis of numerals. There are a number of data analysis processes which are expected to be used in this study. These methods are highlighted below; Analytical induction- Despite being an old method, it is the most appropriate method since it involves an event studied like in this case, after the objectives and hypothetical statements are developed, similar studies or events are checked in order to establish if they fit the hypothesis. If they don’t, there will be need for the revision of the hypothesis. This will include looking for variations in the hypothesis derived and also the objectives created in order for them to suit the examples which are encountered. In the end, a hypothesis that supports all these cases can be established and thus used (Ott & Longnecker, 2008). Matrix Analysis/Logical Analysis- This method of data analysis consists of logical reasoning and generalized causation. It mainly involved the use of diagrams and flow charts among other diagrammatic representations. It also contains written descriptions about the process analyzed. References Great Britain: Department of Health: Estates and Facilities Division. (2007). Firecode - fire safety in the NHS: operational provisions, Part C: Textiles and furnishings, Part 3. Manchester: The Stationery Office. McConnell, P., & Hurban, P .(2007). Methods of Microarray Data Analysis V, Volume 5. New York, NY: Springer. Ott, L., & Longnecker, M.(2008). An introduction to statistical methods and data analysis. New Jersey, NJ: Cengage Learning. Rasbash, D., Ramachandran, G., & Kandola B. (2004). Evaluation of fire safety. London: John Wiley and Sons. Turner Publishing Company.(2000). International Association of Fire Chiefs. London: Turner Publishing Company. Read More