Survey on partition walls commonly used in hong kong and estimation of the heat release rates during fire

Improper use of materials for partition walls would lead to big building fires in case of accidents. However, data on the fire behaviour of local partition materials are insufficient. A survey on partition walls commonly used locally was carried out recently. It is found that partitions are labelled as ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ types by the local building industry. Wet' partitions are those constructed by bricks and concrete, ‘dry’ partitions include timber, gypsum and others. Basically, only the ‘dry’ partitions are of fire concern and there are seven types of them. The construction details, costs, materials used and application areas of dry partitions are studied The possible heat release rates upon burning those items were estimated from experimental data appeared in the literature. The results are useful for engineering approach (or performance-based fire codes) on designing passive building construction for fire safety such as the partitioning of karaoke boxes.