Structural Protection

Steel loses its loadbearing capacity at a temperature in excess of 550°C during a fire; therefore structural steel protection (e.g. with board, paint, spray etc) is required to preserve the stability of the building structure in the event of fire. All Promat products and systems have been tested at nationally accredited laboratories around the world to a variety of standards, e.g. BS 476: Part 21, AS 1530: Part 4, DIN 4102, ASTM E119 and EN 13381-4.

Structural Protection

Structural Steel

Structural Steel

Structural Steel

Steel framed structures now account for some 70% of the multi-storey framed market, with stringent criteria for fire protection requirements.

Promat offers a full range of board and spray products providing flexible solutions to meet a variety of installation and fire protection needs.

Use for

  • Wind posts
  • Column encasement
  • Beam encasement

More information available in the Fire Protection Handbook and Technical Data Sheets.

Design Considerations

Design Considerations

In the United Kingdom, Building Regulations (Document B) require certain elements of structures to have fire resistance for a specified minimum period of time. The amount of fire protection required to achieve this depends on the following:

  • Shape and size of the steel section
  • Perimeter of the steel section exposed to fire
  • Duration of fire resistance specified
  • Type of protection used
  • Limiting temperature of steel section
  • Test standard BS or EN requirement

A/V Section Factor: the degree of fire protection depends on the A/V section factor for the steel section. The A/V factor is a function of the area of the steel exposed to the fire and the volume of the steel section. The higher the A/V, the faster the steel section heats up, and so the greater the thickness of fire protection material required. The section factor and limiting temperature are then used to determine the thickness of protection required.

Chapter 3 of the Fire Protection Handbook provides tables to demonstrate performance of structural steel  at a series of temperatures. Further tables provide the required thickness of boards  for resultant A/V calculations and system designs. Additional system details are available in the Technical Data Sheets and SPEC SELECT®.

Wind Posts: a common way of providing lateral support to tall masonry walls in modern steel-framed buildings. In situations where the walls are also required to provide fire resistance between two compartments (or at a boundary position), the fire protection applied to the wind posts must also maintain the fire separation across the wall construction at that point.

Concrete Deck Upgrades

Concrete Deck Upgrades

Concrete Deck Upgrades

Promat offers a number of solutions to address the increasing requirement for thermal upgrading and fire protection of semi-exposed concrete decks both in the conversion and refurbishment of existing and new building constructions.

Use for

  • Fire protection*
  • Thermal upgrade** 
  • Thin solutions
  • Minimal fixings

**TL Board®
*/**TLFR Board®
*Cafco MANDOLITE® CP2 

More information available in the Fire Protection Handbook and Technical Data Sheets.

Design Considerations

Design Considerations

The following points should be considered when determining the correct specification for concrete upgrades:

  • Composition of overall soffit/floor structure
  • Thickness of the overall concrete slab/soffit
  • Density of the concrete/soffit
  • Thermal requirement 
  • Fire resistance requirement
  • Preferred surface finish
  • Fixings preferred
  • System thickness requirement