Computer simulation and design of composite fire door under elevated temperature using MSC nastran

Abstract

Fire door is a very important part of fire protection. The conventional designs verified using furnace experiments are costly. There is a FEM software, MacNeal- Schwendler Corporation (MSC) Nastran that can greatly accelerate the numerical calculation of the transient heat transfer effect of fire door in the furnace. Therefore, this project has been carried out to analyse and design the fire door by using the FEM software, MSC. Nastran. The simulated result from the software has been verified with existing experimental results. Having confidence to the accuracy of the software, three computer designed composite fire doors were obtained with 1 hour and 2 hours rating according to the MSC. Nastran results. Detail of the design process and the materials selection are included in this thesis. The potential designs of fire door were suggested for future development since they have very good fire resistance. From the simulation, it was found that the insulation of the fire door rises with the increased of the thickness and the layers of the door, and also by using lower conductivity materials. It was also proven by simulation that a design using fiberglass or mineral wool fillet will result in a lower acceptable 2 hours fire rating with the additional advantage of reduced weight.