Application of a risk assessment methodology to quantify the life safety risk for people present in buildings in case of fire

The present paper describes the initial steps to the development of a risk assessment methodology to quantify the life safety risk for people present in buildings in the context of the creation of a fire safety design. The current situation in countries (e.g. Belgium, etc.) with prescriptive based legislation is discussed from which two fundamental problems are derived. This is lack of quality of quantification of performance based designs and no quantitative comparison between the former and prescriptive concepts. Regarding these problems, a quantitative risk assessment approach for different types of buildings with complex geometries is suggested. The purpose is to develop a method which can verify the safety level of the designed building with the predefined safety level of the prescriptive requirements and compare alternative solutions with each other. From these objectives, a plan of attack is constructed in which the main challenges of the process are discussed and tackled. A first case study is performed in order to obtain knowledge about the distribution of the output parameter of the results of the deterministic part of the to be developed methodology.The purpose of the paper is to propose a possible way to follow in order to address the problem. The second goal is that the paper leads to an open discussion with worlds experts in the field in order to have an optimal outcome of the to be performed research.The present paper describes the initial steps to the development of a risk assessment methodology to quantify the life safety risk for people present in buildings in the context of the creation of a fire safety design. The current situation in countries (e.g. Belgium, etc.) with prescriptive based legislation is discussed from which two fundamental problems are derived. This is lack of quality of quantification of performance based designs and no quantitative comparison between the former and prescriptive concepts. Regarding these problems, a quantitative risk assessment approach for different types of buildings with complex geometries is suggested. The purpose is to develop a method which can verify the safety level of the designed building with the predefined safety level of the prescriptive requirements and compare alternative solutions with each other. From these objectives, a plan of attack is constructed in which the main challenges of the process are discussed and tackled. A first case study is performed in order to obtain knowledge about the distribution of the output parameter of the results of the deterministic part of the to be developed methodology.The purpose of the paper is to propose a possible way to follow in order to address the problem. The second goal is that the paper leads to an open discussion with worlds experts in the field in order to have an optimal outcome of the to be performed research.C