PREFACE
After working for around a decade in the Fire Protection Industry
in India, I could understand how our structures are designed,
understood and regulated. Indian structures in the 21st century
have started their vertical growth due to rapid urbanization. These
aspects have also given a new dimension to fire safety and brought
various challenges from the fire protection standpoint.
One of the biggest challenge in India to fight any fire is traffic,
reliability of water supply and maintenance of active fire
protection systems. Therefore, architects and designers have also
continuously given more and more attention to the passive fire
protection systems which are independent of challenges like traffic
and other issue highlighted above. But even then, it has been
noted that passive fire protection is understood by many as only a
few types of passive fire protection systems. The understanding of
Firestopping is one such factor that needs a lot of attention in order
to design our structure fire safe.
This lack of understanding is primarily because we don’t have any
literature in India which can address this topic in detail. Hence, in
the mission to save lives and make our structures fire-safe and
spread technical awareness, I started writing this book with huge
support from the International Codes Council.
This book, Firestopping examines the provisions of the National
Building Code of India and International Building Code® (IBC®)
related to the protection of openings and penetrations in fire-
resistance-rated construction to preserve the effectiveness of the
rated assembly. Openings and penetrations in a fire-resistance-
rated and/or smoke-resistant assembly create potential weak links
or holes that can dramatically reduce the assembly’s effectiveness,
or render it completely ineffective if they are not properly protected.
This publication explains and illustrates the correct application of
the code requirements for penetration and joint firestop systems
so that a fire-resistance-rated and/or smoke-resistant building
assembly can perform as intended and maintain its rating.
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