Fire Performance Of Façade Materials In Saudi High-Rise Buildings: Implications For Civil Defence And Code Compliance.

Abstract

Aluminium Composite Panel (ACP) façade materials have been implicated in several catastrophic building fires worldwide, raising urgent concerns about their fire performance. The rapid vertical spread of fire, high heat release, and toxic smoke generation associated with certain ACP systems have led to significant casualties and property loss, prompting global scrutiny and regulatory reforms. These developments are particularly relevant for Saudi Arabia due to the intensive solar radiation and high temperatures experienced in the country. In that regard, this study aimed to comprehensively assess the fire performance of cladding materials used in high-rise buildings in Saudi Arabia (particularly Aluminium Composite Panels ACPs) through code compliance checks, experimental testing, and simulation analysis, to enhance building safety and Civil Defence preparedness. Three samples of composite materials were collected from different regions in Saudi Arabia. Bomb Calorimetry, Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), together with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations using Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) and the Ozone model were utilised to gain insights into fire behaviour, thermal characteristics and fire performance of the composite materials. The results showed that while composite materials in Saudi Arabia could potentially meet the EN13501 -1 for class A1 and A2, there are specific risk factors within the ACP components that might enhance fire growth and smoke production levels. One sample in particularly was found to be high risk, having weak retardant properties and an exceptionally high mass loss percentage of 76% for the core. In view of such finding, there is a need to reassess façade composite materials and perform full scale tests.