HERA Structural Division

Calculation of Fire Engineering Design Fire and Steel Temperatures Using FaST Ver 1.0
The HERA Structural Engineer would like to announce the availability of a useful computer program that has been developed by the HERA Structural Division for fire engineering design.

Called FaST Ver 1.0 - for Fire and Steel Temperatures Version 1.0 - as it allows users to undertake the following:

- To determine the fire time temperature curve for the Standard Fire, also incorporating an optional linear decay curve, and for two widely used parametric time – temperature curves, within a simple enclosure with vertical openings

- To calculate steel section temperatures under a range of common exposure conditions and with/without passive fire protection

- To calculate steel section temperatures when shielded from the fire by a radiation barrier

Steel section shapes covered are I-section beams or columns, both hot – rolled or welded, parallel flange channels, square and rectangular hollow sections.

Insulation materials covered comprises sprayed mineral fibre, sprayed vermiculite plaster, fibre- silicate board, gypsum plaster board, and mineral wool blanket. The insulation thickness is input in mm. Where required, the temperature to insulation failure can be input in deg C

The program is principally used as part of a fire engineering design for low to moderate structural fire severity. It is used to calculate steel beam temperatures, which are either compared to the limiting temperature calculated using NZS 3404 Clause 11.7 or used to obtain elevated temperature capacities of the elements (flanges, web) of a steel member.

The loads applied are the fire emergency loads determined from NZS 4203 or AS/NZS 1170. A beta-version was released last year for limited testing resulting in useful feedback and suggestions for significant improvement, which have been incorporated into the Version 1.0

The program comes with a User Manual which is HERA Report R4-127. This is available in hard copy and as a program Help file.

Download FaST Ver1 User Manual and Commentary (PDF)

Download FaST Ver 1.0

For further information contact Charles Clifton at +64 9 262 4841or
email: structural@hera.org.nz