Fire Rated Blast Doors

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Fire rated blast doors - Investment, research, development and testing

Defence Doors Ltd continue to design, develop and test new products, in 2007 the latest addition to the bespoke blast door range was the 4 hr blast 44kn blast door assembly. The steel door sets were primarily designed as heavy duty blast resistant doors but combined with fire certification to 4 hours and tested to BS EN 1634-1:2000. This test was terminated at 4hrs 20mins as there has never been a requirement for certification of steel blast door resistant to more than 4hrs.

In January 2011 further investment and continual improvement of the companies’ product range has lead to the lighter 22kn blast door range being subjected to a series of fire tests. The tests were conducted to determine the integrity of the existing lighter blast door range.

Cost option for dual use:

The result of this investment confirmed the standard 22kn blast door not only protects personnel from a blast event but by default becomes a 2 hour rated fire blast door and at no additional cost to the client

Why use fire rated blast doors?

By the nature of the stored product, a petro-chemical site is one of the most hazardous environments to work in. Health and safety is the first and foremost consideration in the design of these facilities.

The risk of igniting flammable material resulting in a blast wave and pursuing fire is a very real threat so the safety of site personnel is always a key feature in the buildings design.

These blast resistant buildings are designed with blast proof doors around the perimeter allowing easy access into the building or as an emergency exit from the building should the need ever arise.

Blast resistant doors on these facilities have for many years been designed through calculation ensuring the people inside are protected from the blast wave but little consideration had been given to fire protection as blast was the primary function

What if the worse does happen and then a serious fire does occur as a direct result of the blast? Will the blast doors also protect from fire?

With this secondary threat in mind Defence Doors designed, manufactured and fire tested a series of 22kn blast door sets

The blast doors were fire tested in accordance with BS EN 1634-1:2008 and confirmed Defence Doors 22kn blast door range did have fire integrity of 2 hours for both double and single leaf blast doors assemblies.

The tests were terminated after 2 hours with a pass on all tested door configurations

The door sets included variations on both single and double leaf units, different doors were fitted with a selection of hardware sets from two different manufacturers Fire rated glazed windows were installed into the active leaves leaving the end user and option of fire rated blast doors with lever handle operation or emergency exit hardware, external lock sets for secure buildings with restricted access and glazed vision panels whilst maintaining a 2 hr fire rating blast and blast integrity