A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Fire Safety Design of the First Cavern Laboratory in Hong Kong: Challenges and Innovations
The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (“the Government”) regards rock cavern development as a middle-to-long-term land supply option for alleviating the problem of urban land shortage. Valuable surface land could be reserved for other beneficial uses by accommodating or relocating suitable facilities into caverns. Following the successful examples of caverns project for public utilities like sewage treatment works, the Government aims to extend the use of caverns to house other suitable facilities, such as laboratory, in which the population density and fire risk is notably higher. The Project “Relocation of Public Works Central Laboratory (PWCL) in caverns” (“the Project”) is to relocate the existing PWCL to caverns, and about 250 people will work inside the caverns when the PWCL is in full operation. The reprovisioned PWCL will be the first laboratory to be built in caverns in Hong Kong. Safeguarding human life inside the laboratory against fire hazard is of paramount importance, the associated fire risk has therefore been carefully assessed and mitigated. The key challenge arises from the fact that the prevailing fire safety design codes are mostly tailored for surface buildings, which is not fully applicable to cavern facilities. Due to the unique setting of the caverns, there are genuine difficulties to satisfy the deem-to-comply design requirements as stipulated in the fire safety design codes. On the contrary, some specific fire hazards may attribute to the cavern setting or the usage of the facilities and warrant extra considerations. To ensure the fire safety level of the design would not be inferior to that in surface facilities, comprehensive assessment based on Fire Engineering (FE) approach is conducted covering all fire safety aspects, including means of access, means of escape, fire compartmentation and fire services installation. With FE approach, innovative proposal is devised that improves the fire safety level and enables effective firefighting operation. This unprecedented design provides a cost-effective solution without compromising the fire safety standard. It will become the reference for of the fire safety design of future cavern facilities in Hong Kong.
Fire Safety Design of the First Cavern Laboratory in Hong Kong: Challenges and Innovations
The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (“the Government”) regards rock cavern development as a middle-to-long-term land supply option for alleviating the problem of urban land shortage. Valuable surface land could be reserved for other beneficial uses by accommodating or relocating suitable facilities into caverns. Following the successful examples of caverns project for public utilities like sewage treatment works, the Government aims to extend the use of caverns to house other suitable facilities, such as laboratory, in which the population density and fire risk is notably higher. The Project “Relocation of Public Works Central Laboratory (PWCL) in caverns” (“the Project”) is to relocate the existing PWCL to caverns, and about 250 people will work inside the caverns when the PWCL is in full operation. The reprovisioned PWCL will be the first laboratory to be built in caverns in Hong Kong. Safeguarding human life inside the laboratory against fire hazard is of paramount importance, the associated fire risk has therefore been carefully assessed and mitigated. The key challenge arises from the fact that the prevailing fire safety design codes are mostly tailored for surface buildings, which is not fully applicable to cavern facilities. Due to the unique setting of the caverns, there are genuine difficulties to satisfy the deem-to-comply design requirements as stipulated in the fire safety design codes. On the contrary, some specific fire hazards may attribute to the cavern setting or the usage of the facilities and warrant extra considerations. To ensure the fire safety level of the design would not be inferior to that in surface facilities, comprehensive assessment based on Fire Engineering (FE) approach is conducted covering all fire safety aspects, including means of access, means of escape, fire compartmentation and fire services installation. With FE approach, innovative proposal is devised that improves the fire safety level and enables effective firefighting operation. This unprecedented design provides a cost-effective solution without compromising the fire safety standard. It will become the reference for of the fire safety design of future cavern facilities in Hong Kong.
Fire Safety Design of the First Cavern Laboratory in Hong Kong: Challenges and Innovations
Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering
Wu, Wei (editor) / Leung, Chun Fai (editor) / Zhou, Yingxin (editor) / Li, Xiaozhao (editor) / Tsang, Steven N. F. (author) / Chan, Ivan H. H. (author) / Au, Gary G. H. (author)
Conference of the Associated research Centers for the Urban Underground Space ; 2023 ; Boulevard, Singapore
2024-07-10
10 pages
Article/Chapter (Book)
Electronic Resource
English
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