Assignment 1 Fire Resistance of Structures (MKAE1213)

Norerny Shuhada Binti Hamdan

MKA191014

The Story Behind EPF Building in Fire

Introduction
One of the biggest fire incident happen involving quite a large scale of fire which affect the
whole exterior building of EPF in Petaling Jaya last year. The Fire and Rescue Department and police
confirmed that all 527 employees and their clients made it out of the building safely, with no injuries
reported (Kalbana & Hasbi, New Straits Times, 2018). This building was built in the 1970’s, designed
by S.P.M. Merer from BEP Architect firm. The six-storey high office building consists of a square
plan with a central service core and the gross floor area is approximately 14,279 m2 (Roslan Talib, A
Ghafar, M Zailan, 2015).
It was reported that the fire was limited to the exterior of the building and no important
documents were damaged on the top floor of the building. The firefighters play important role in
controlling the fire from spread into the office space and building even though the fire was spread
quickly during the hot weather. About 70 firefighters were deployed from several stations in the district
as soon as the Fire and Rescue Department received a distress call at 11.52am. About four engines and
two turntable engines were used in the operation (Kalbana & Hasbi, New Straits Times, 2018). It took
about an 30 minutes to completely douse the flames. Almost 40% of the building was engulfed in
flames and the damage cost of 59-year-old building overlooking the Federal Highway had been a
landmark for many years is estimated around RM1.85 million in losses (Kamal, 2018).

Figure 1 : EPF building before fire Figure 2 : EPF building after fire
(Kamal, 2018)

Root Cause of Fire Incident

Before the incident happen, the initial investigations led authorities to believe that the fire was
caused by a spark from maintenance works being done at the building, which ignited the polyethylene
cladding - a highly-combustible material if there is a fire source close to it. Therefore, based on this
dense explanation, it can be concluded that the root cause are:
Assignment 1 Fire Resistance of Structures (MKAE1213)
Norerny Shuhada Binti Hamdan
MKA191014

1. Unsuitable material used for cladding

2. Passive Fire protection fail
Cladding function as the insulation to improve the building’s thermal performance and at the same
time can reduce energy usage inside the building. Besides, it also can improve the appearance of
building. Commonly, cladding uses aluminium composite panels (ACPs) which is fire retardant. ACPs
is made of aluminium composite materials that consists of two thin aluminium sheets bonded to a non-
aluminium core and commonly used for decorative external cladding or facades (Designing Buildings
Wiki, 2019). ACPs are manufactured with several core either from the flammable polyethylene core
to non-combustible aluminium honeycomb core (Kalbana, Hasbi, 2018) . Unfortunately, the cheaper
polyethylene-core cladding which is proven combustible in tests has been installed for the whole EPF
building. The ACPs cladding with the polyethylene insulation inside is the main reason of the easily
spreading the fire.
Cladding

Concrete Insulation
Wall Polyethylene- Air
core

Figure 3: Façade System in EPF building system

The fire issue on EPF building is closely related with the Grenfell Tower in London case and the
same event was found due to their cladding material (Kalbana, Hasbi, 2018). The ‘limited
combustibility’ type of the same material from polyethylene which have fire retardants added to them
are available, but mostly due to the cost saving issue, the simple non-fire retardant filler material was
believed to be used in a lot of buildings in Malaysia. The only fire resistance of the façade comes from
the surrounding metal layer. Therefore, in EPF building case, the fire which ignite from a spark causing
the combustible external cladding start to be caught in fire and the hot weather helping it spread quickly
towards below and upper cladding. If the building’s steel frame is burnt continuously, it will buckle.
When it is bent, the panels is once fitted will change shape and giving the fire access towards the
interior material and eventually will burnt the whole building in a blink of an eye. This has proven
that, the polyethylene cladding of this type has been linked to the rapid spread of tower block fires in
the past for example in France, Australia, and Dubai (Stoye, 2017).
One of the requirement in the building’s system is the structural fire engineering which promote
the implementation of the good active and passive fire protection. In this case, the passive fire
protection was failed from the early stage of material selection. The cladding which is functioned to
protect the external building was failed and easily exposed the concrete structure to the fire which can
affect the strength of structure building. The building regulations covering which materials should be
used in the term of combustibility tests and it obviously should not be installed in building for fire
resistance purpose. Hence, the material of the cladding had failed the safety test and it is not certified
to be further installed.
Assignment 1 Fire Resistance of Structures (MKAE1213)
Norerny Shuhada Binti Hamdan
MKA191014

Conclusion
In fire EPF building case, it can be conclude that, the impact of the cost saving had brought the serious
event in ignoring the safety of building and causing the known combustible material still be used in
installation. The fail fire protection was found fail and consequently will further affect the strength of
building structure and eventually led to structure damage and killing more people instantly.

One World Trade Centre Collapse Case due to Fire

Introduction
In New York on 11th September 2001, the twin towers of the World Trade Center and several
other buildings were damaged or destroyed, and more than 3,000 people were killed (Nicholas,
Kenneth, 2011). Originally the World Trade Center was a large complex which consist 7 buildings.
Buildings like the twin towers WTC were considered safe because they could withstand the hurricane-
force winds and even the impact of a small plane. In addition, they were over-built to not fall down.
The biggest impact of collapse happened to the twin towers with its 110 stories which are 1 WTC and
2 WTC (Hung, 2003). The surrounding buildings were affected to the collapse including the Marriott
World Trade Center (3 WTC), 4 WTC, 5 WTC, 6 WTC and 7 WTC mostly consist of complex and
office space. The 1 WTC estimate height 1,368 feet (417m) attached with antenna spire, meanwhile
the 2 WTC is 1,362 feet (415.1m) were once the tallest building in the world (World Trade Center
(1973–2001), 2001). The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spending US$ 700 million on
WTC project.
The collapse begun with the two hijacked civilian aircrafts which intentionally piloted to hit
towards the twin towers. As reported, the impact was focused to hit the upper part of the towers at
about the 80th and 95th floor. The both jets were carrying about 10,000 gallons of fuel (World Trade
Center Building Performance Study, 2002). The towers fortunately can withstand longer than the
expected after the severe crash and damage to many floors. The structural design is proved to be
workable in the incident. However, after 1 hour burning at huge fire, the two towers instantly fall
together with several other buildings of the complex.

Figure 4: The tower on the left, with antenna spire, 1 WTC. The tower on the right was 2 WTC (source
from Wikipedia)
Assignment 1 Fire Resistance of Structures (MKAE1213)
Norerny Shuhada Binti Hamdan
MKA191014

Root Cause of the Incident

The incident of WCT has raised the public concern on the fire safety provisions in high-rise
buildings as the primary structural elements in towers were supposedly 2-hour or 4-hour fire resistance
periods (FRP), but instead the twin building collapsed after 1 hour and 13/4 hours respectively (W.Y.
Hung and W.K. Chow, 2002). The rivalry in skyscrapers create the widely used design which a high
rise can primary load-bearing structure and the innovative structural design was applied in WTC twin
towers project. As mentioned previously, twin towers can overcome the natural hazards, such as
hurricanes, floods and earthquakes. Unfortunately, the building was not prepared for the terrorist attack
even though the building can withstand the impact of an aircraft as it can withstand the wind loading
speeds up to 200 (mph) (Hung, 2003).
The innovative design done on the twin tower was by the central core composed of a cluster of
steel columns was used mainly to support the elevator and stairs. Hence, it was not enduring the weight
of the whole structure but only the load of gravity of a portion of the building. The steel columns were
distribute unevenly based on the functionality of the floor. Therefore, once the part of the structure
building was destructed or disturbed the strength of the building will continuously loss its strength. In
the case of aircraft impact, severe crash and damages to many floors causing the increased stresses
experienced in other structure member due to the load transfer from the damaged part of the building
(Tara Cavalline and Norb Delatte, 2015).

Figure 5: Effects on Fires on Expansion of Floor Slabs (source from FEMA 403)
As shown in Figure 5, twin tower mainly consist of tons of steel and the steel trusses was
running between the internal and perimeter steel column were holding up the lightweight concrete
floor slab as well stabilizing the outer structure. Besides that, the steel column and truss were coated
with fireproof coating which can provide the 3-hour and enable to resist the heating at about 800℃ to
870℃ (Hung, 2003). Unexpectedly, the burning jet which create an opening and the fuel which
penetrate into the central core which consists of vertical elevator shaft, receiving the sufficient amount
of air to keep burning. The continuous burning of heat source from the fuel jet give the extreme
condition towards the exposed damaged steel damaged which later on led to bending and melting of
the steel material and it was reported that the highest fire temperature cause by the fuel burning is
1000℃. Consequently, the floor truss expand, the outer steel frame and column bending and weaken
which resulting the instant collapse both towers due to unbearable load.
Assignment 1 Fire Resistance of Structures (MKAE1213)
Norerny Shuhada Binti Hamdan
MKA191014

Conclusion
The incident twin towers of World Trade Center was initially caused by the terrorist attacks which led
to the huge fire incident that continuously weaken the structure of the building which mainly consist
of steel. Steel which is known as expand material and changing shape when exposed to the certain
temperature. This nature properties of material seems to be underestimated in the twin tower structure
design which has poor joint in between the steel as it only consider the sufficient strength to support
only the portion of load. Consequently, the instant collapsed of twin towers happen sacrificing almost
3,000 people.
References

Designing Buildings Wiki. (2019, August 30). Retrieved from

https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire

Hung, W. (2003). Review on the World Trade Center Terrorist Attack Fires. International Journal on
Engineering Performance-Based Fire Codes.

Kalbana, Hasbi. (2018, February 14). EPF building fire: Did the Grenfell tragedy nearly happen here. Retrieved
from New Straits Times: https://www.nst.com.my/news/exclusive/2018/02/335412/epf-building-
fire-did-grenfell-tragedy-nearly-happen-here

Kamal, M. (2018, March 20). Retrieved from Malaysian Must Know the Truth:
http://malaysiansmustknowthetruth.blogspot.com/2019/09/epf-shuts-down-landmark-pj-office-
in.html

Nicholas, Kenneth. (2011). Case Study : One World Trade Center New York. CTBUH Research Paper.

Roslan Talib, A Ghafar, M Zailan. (2015). Analysis of new Waterproofing System for the PJ EPF building.
Advances in Environmental Biology.

Stoye, E. (2017). Chemistry World. London’s Deadly Grenfell Tower Fire: Building Material Now Leading
Suspect.

Tara Cavalline and Norb Delatte. (2015). Learning from the World Trade Center Collapse. ASSE Annual
Conference & Exposition.

W.Y. Hung and W.K. Chow. (2002). Review on the Requirement on the Fire Resisting Construction.
International Journal on Engineering Performance- Based FIre Codes.

World Trade Center (1973–2001). (2001, September 14). Retrieved from Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_(1973%E2%80%932001)

World Trade Center Building Performance Study. (2002). Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA.