A network document of Harley Exterior Wall Construction Company, which participated in the installation of the building, showed that in the renovation project of 20 16, which cost100,000 pounds, the exterior wall cladding composed of aluminum plate and polyethylene plastic was used in Grenfell Building, which violated the requirement of low flammability. The preliminary investigation shows that there is a gap between the outer wall of Grenfell Tower and its cladding, and the structure is similar to a chimney, which makes the flame spread upward rapidly.
Although there is no official investigation result to prove that the London fire was caused by the external wall panel, the painful historical lesson should sound the alarm for the British construction industry.
Coincidentally, 2065438+0165438 On 25 October 2004/KLOC-0, a fire broke out in a residential building named Lacrosse in the Binhai Port Area of Melbourne, Australia, and the building also used aluminum-plastic composite panels as external wall cladding.
The fire in Melbourne is similar to the fire in London, and it is "unprecedented" in the speed of fire spread. The fire first started with a cigarette on the balcony on the 8th floor, and it spread to the top of building 2 1 1 minute. David Youssef, deputy director of Melbourne Fire Department, called the spread "unexpected".
Through investigation, it is found that the fire is directly related to the composite materials on the external wall coating. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization of Australia (CSIRO) said after testing the building materials that the external coating was flammable and violated the building code.
In fact, the aluminum-plastic composite board with polyethylene plastic as the core and aluminum alloy as the outer layer has become a widely used high-rise building material in the world because of its beauty and low price, but it is full of fire hazards.
In Australia, France, United Arab Emirates, South Korea and the United States, there have been cases of fires caused by the use of aluminum-plastic composite panels in building materials.
According to the latest report, following the Grenfell Building fire in London, the Economic Committee of the Australian Senate announced an investigation into the use of building cladding materials.
The Economic Committee of the Australian Senate is currently investigating building materials products and intends to hold a hearing on the use of building cladding materials in Australia. Chris Ketter, Chairman of the Economic Committee of the Australian Senate and a Labour Senator, said that the Grenfell fire tragedy was a "timely reminder", that is, the Australian Parliament had the responsibility to ensure that similar tragedies would not happen in Australia. In his view, the main risk at present is that some construction companies use cladding materials that are not suitable for high-rise buildings.
He said: "I am deeply worried about this. Although we have formulated laws and regulations on the use of coating materials. However, there are still some construction companies playing the edge ball. Therefore, we urgently need to hold a hearing to check the specific situation. "
Independent Senator Nick Xenophon expressed support for the proposal of hearing on behalf of his party. He said: "This is an issue that needs the absolute support of the two parties. We also need to inspect the buildings all over the country. After the fire broke out in the LaCrosse apartment, the inspection work has not been carried out. This tragedy in London not only sounded the alarm for us, but also made governments at all levels realize once again that there is no excuse to ensure the safety of owners and tourists. "
"Besides the cladding materials themselves, the reasonable application of these materials is equally important." Engineering experts said that it is impossible to accurately count how many buildings in Australia do not use flammable cladding materials correctly. Chris Stoltz, president of the Victorian Institute of Engineers in Australia, said: "There is a widespread problem of using flammable cladding materials in Australia. Almost every provincial capital city and even some remote areas are using it. "
In Chris Stoertz's view, holding a hearing is a "useful test". But at the same time, he also warned that the government's concern should not be limited to the types of applied materials. He said: "In addition to the cladding materials themselves, it is equally important to use these materials reasonably."
Chris Stoltz pointed out that the fire in Grenfell Building in London spread rapidly because there were also problems in the cladding design. He said: "All the problems are not just cladding materials. We should ensure that the construction process of the building is consistent with the design. I think we must look at the whole problem completely and ensure the compliance of the building. "
So how many high-rise buildings in Australia use this kind of aluminum-plastic composite board?
Reading navigation
I. Victoria-Tragedy happened.
Second, there are fire hazards in 2500 buildings in NSW.
Third, there are hidden dangers in Brisben.
Four, in the face of high-rise building fire hazards, how should we deal with it?
5. Building materials are flammable, so why use them?
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Victoria.-Tragedy happened.
20 1165438+1In the early morning of October 25th,1an unlit cigarette caused a fire on a balcony on the 6th floor of the LaCrosse, and the fire spread to the 3rd floor of 1 1 minute.
This incident has aroused concern from all walks of life about the safety and quality of high-rise buildings. After investigation, it was found that the building materials of the apartment building contained plastic core aluminum exterior wall materials that did not meet the safety requirements.
The cheap exterior wall materials used in LaCrosse Mansion are no different from qualified materials in appearance.
The outer surface of this material is aluminum, but the inner layer is highly flammable polyethylene or plastic fiber. The cladding that should be used is made of the same aluminum, but its inner layer is made of high-temperature resistant mineral fibers.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, entrusted by the Melbourne Fire Department, conducted a burning test on this material, and found that the aluminum cladding material imported from China, named Alucobest, caught fire in less than one minute.
According to the investigation of Metropolitan Fire Department, the paint imported from China does not meet Australian standards, and should never be used in high-rise apartment buildings. CSIRO tests show that it is highly flammable.
Because this material is highly flammable, CSIRO had to give up the fire test to avoid damaging the test instrument. 3 12 households living in the lacrosse apartment were ordered to replace the non-compliant cladding out of their own pockets at a cost of at least 40 million Australian dollars.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) also pointed out in a special program survey at 7:30 May 20 15 that this cheap material was imported from China.
In addition, Eureka Tower, Melbourne's tallest building and the most attractive tourist attraction, was found to have violated Australian building, fire and safety regulations and used non-compliant and highly flammable building materials imported from Asia.
According to The Australian, this 9 1 storey building contains a highly flammable aluminum-clad plastic core. The builder of Eureka is Grocon, a famous Australian architectural development company.
Grocon Construction Company said that it will take actions to ensure the safety of Eureka Tower in view of the problems found by Victorian Construction Supervision Bureau. Grocom has not released any information about non-compliant building materials.
Some of Australia's largest construction companies, including Grocon, are on the list of highly flammable building materials. This highly flammable and dangerous material was also found in the building of the Royal Victoria Women's Hospital, which cost 250 million Australian dollars.
Victoria Building Authority found a large number of non-compliant coatings in high-rise buildings all over Melbourne. In the past ten years, more than half of the high-rise buildings in Melbourne have used potentially deadly building materials.
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The Victorian Building Authority (VBA) has issued an audit notice to the builder to inspect the Melbourne 170 building. The Victorian Building Authority said that the details of the builders who did not meet the requirements would appear on their official website.
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Victoria has 654.38 million approved construction projects every year. A project permit can represent the construction of a 70-story building. If anything goes wrong, the consequences will be disastrous.
Michael O'Connor, the national secretary of the Federation of Architecture, Forestry, Minerals and Energy, said that he believed that cheap exterior wall covering materials were not only used for lacrosse buildings. He said: "This kind of material is quite common, all over Australia, Brisben, Perth, Melbourne, all the capital cities."
It is believed that 2500 high-rise buildings in Sydney may also contain the same type of low-cost and highly flammable materials imported from Asia. Since the upsurge of apartment building in Australia, this cheap building material has been favored by building developers more and more.
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2,500 buildings in New South Wales are at risk of fire.
According to a report by the NSW government in Australia, as many as 2,500 buildings in NSW have "death traps", implying as great a risk as the recent London apartment building fire. However, the government has not taken any measures in the past two years, and the opposition party has called on the government to urgently inspect those high-rise buildings that use non-compliant materials.
According to the Daily Telegraph, since the serious fire broke out in the LaCrosse apartment building in Melbourne on 20 14, NSW government began to pay attention to the building materials used for the exterior decoration of NSW apartment building.
According to a report obtained by NSW opposition party through Freedom of Information Act, the exterior decoration materials of 2,500 buildings in NSW may be the same as Melbourne Fire Building announced in September 1965, 438+05.
At present, the government does not seem to know how many buildings are at risk of fire. Moreover, two years after the publication of the report, it seems that the government has not taken any measures to improve the safety of public buildings. "Initially, 65,438+0,500-2,500 buildings were in danger, but this figure should be used with caution and further analysis is needed to get a more accurate estimate," the report said.
A developer said that the aluminum composite board used in London building is very common in Sydney at present, and it is an imported material. The report said: "Aluminum composite panels mainly involve multi-storey buildings, which has the potential risk of catastrophic fire spreading rapidly and vertically through the external walls of buildings."
Yasmine Cattell, director-general of shadow codes, an opposition party in NSW, believes that the government should urgently inspect all high-rise buildings in NSW suspected of containing substandard building materials. "The current situation is that we don't know that some high-rise buildings have potential fire risks." She said that the government has been aware of this situation for two years. "As many as 2,500 high-rise buildings may be equipped with this material, but so far, the government's response to this problem is really disturbing."
According to the construction union, former governor Mike Baird asked for an emergency inspection of NSW buildings on 20 15, but the result was unknown.
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There are also hidden dangers in Brisben
Paul Bidwell, CEO of MBQ, a famous Australian architecture group, said in a recent interview: "Many Queenslanders also live on a' time bomb'. A tragedy like London may happen again in Queensland. "
"We all know that there are unqualified products everywhere, or building materials are being installed in the wrong way everywhere."
In 20 16, a high-rise student dormitory building located in the center of Brisben was found to have a fire hazard in the cladding material of the external wall.
Mr Bidwell said that many new buildings in Queensland, especially high-rise apartments, will use flammable cladding.
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How to deal with high-rise fire hazards?
Fire is a disaster that everyone is worried about. The so-called unexpected troubles can't even be avoided at home.
Combustible is a necessary condition for building fire. In addition to the visible "firewood" such as indoor furniture, clothes or wooden decorations, there may be a "combustible quilt" hidden under the seemingly cold and hard skin of the building-wall insulation material.
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Nick Xenophon, an independent lawmaker in Australia, once said that Australia needs to review all high-rise buildings covered with outer layers to ensure that these materials can be fire-proof and meet Australian standards. If it does not meet the standard, it needs to be removed.
He also pointed out that some other building materials imported into Australia did not meet local standards.
Phil Dwyer, chairman of the Australian Builders Collective, warned buyers who want to buy apartments in Melbourne not to buy houses with flammable coatings, which are as easy to catch fire as firecrackers.
In addition to special circumstances such as the explosion of hazardous chemicals, the fire in high-rise buildings is the most daunting.
According to The Times, the MFB(Melbourne Metropolitan) Fire Department warned that in the future, if high-rise buildings are filled with flammable materials and threaten the safety of firefighters, firefighters may be prohibited from entering high-rise apartments for rescue.
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The most prominent feature of high-rise fire is that it is difficult to put out. Even if the ladder can reach a certain height, the amount of water can't keep up, and high-tech such as helicopters can't help it. The unique pulling wind effect of high-rise buildings makes the fire progress particularly rapidly. Often a large number of fire engines are gathered, and they can only watch it burn out.
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In the usual concept of escape, the awareness of smoke prevention is higher than that of fire prevention, because it takes some time for the fire to spread, but contact with toxic smoke can quickly lead to coma. Therefore, common sense of escape will lead everyone to go back to the room to seal the door when the fire is relatively strong, or flee to the roof to wait for rescue ... However, in the latest London fire, everyone will find that this is a pit, and there is almost no life to evacuate to the ground without taking the time. In the early six-story brick building or reinforced concrete small high-rise building, the fire was not so terrible, because the structure did not burn up and there were not many combustible appendages, so the fire would be confined to one household, and it would be difficult to burn the neighbors if all the homes were burned down. According to traditional common sense, it is feasible to go indoors to avoid smoking. But modern high-rise buildings have added a dangerous variable: external insulation. The external insulation layer is usually flammable and combustible materials, which will seal the whole building in the sea of fire at the moment of fire. Among the existing buildings, a large number of buildings adopt low-standard external insulation, which can not be replaced in a large area and become the most dangerous ambush killer. At present, many high-rise buildings will post notices prohibiting fireworks from being set off around during festivals. This is definitely not an alarmist. In big cities in Europe and America, such as London, a large number of high-rise houses have been built since 1970s and earlier to cope with the upsurge of population growth. In the early days, they were not insulated. Due to the demand of energy saving and comfort in the new era, this high-rise apartment may face reconstruction and disaster. It is reported that it has just undergone external insulation renovation. For disasters, improvisation is not enough. Everyone needs to be familiar with the buildings they often stay in, including escape routes and external insulation performance. If the external wall belongs to non-A-class insulation or contains a large number of flammable decorations such as aluminum-plastic plates, there is no chance to wait for rescue. Under the protection of wet towels and quilts, you must escape to the ground regardless, which is the greatest chance of survival. The fire burns upward, and the outer layer is combustible, but the reinforced concrete structure does not burn. There will be smoke in the evacuation stairs, but it will certainly not burn. You may faint on the fifth floor, but it's better than being burned alive on the 10 floor. The lower it is, the safer it is and the easier it is to be rescued by firefighters. Firefighters will only take this passage. They may rush to the fifth floor to find you, but there is absolutely no way to rush to the hot top floor.
It is unwise to escape upward, not to mention that people are not allowed on the top of high-rise buildings, which are usually locked. And if you hide in a window or balcony, there is only one way, jumping off a building. Everything is different from the era of six-story brick buildings. Old common sense needs to be updated, and all precious time and wisdom should be spent trying to escape to the ground. Don't trust artifacts such as knotted sheets and parachutes. People without training are usually a waste of time. Don't wait until the fire is big. Once you find any signs of fire, such as smoke, even on floors far away, you should immediately carry out preventive evacuation. For example, the London fire consumed the whole building in only 15 minutes, and the burning speed of organic materials was unimaginable.
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Building materials are flammable, why use them?
New thermal insulation building materials are favored by developers and builders because of their low price and simple construction technology. However, the fatal disadvantage of organic materials is flammability. In recent years, many major fire accidents are caused by organic thermal insulation materials. Many countries in the world have strictly prohibited the use of organic thermal insulation materials in high-rise buildings because they are flammable.
However, from the material point of view, if the thermal insulation products are not inorganic materials, their fire resistance is not good. Therefore, construction contractors are faced with a dilemma when choosing thermal insulation materials: things with good fire resistance will have poor thermal insulation performance; Good thermal insulation, soft and loose things, poor flame retardancy. A person in the heat preservation equipment industry said, "It is very difficult for us to do this industry. It is a question whether saving electricity is important or life is important. "
The population is more and more dense, the buildings are more and more dense, and there are more and more multi-storey and high-rise buildings. Floor height is an unchangeable status quo. Flammable organic materials are widely used as insulation layers, and there are fire hazards both indoors and outdoors. Although the external insulation is outdoors, due to the huge use area, the fire safety distance between buildings seriously exceeds the standard, which is more harmful to the fire.
Australia's external wall insulation policy has not been issued in time, so far the construction management of external wall insulation system is in a vacuum state, and there is no organization with professional qualifications to audit the quality of external wall insulation system.
If we don't make up our minds to rectify the norms nationwide, it is impossible to expect a city or a state government to "clear the field" to achieve self-protection.
The production and use of materials, construction design and other links are strictly implemented in accordance with national standards. Even if organic materials with high flammability are used, some potential safety hazards can be avoided.
On the other hand, the new thermal insulation building materials can't be regarded as heinous and the culprit.
Statistics show that every ton of mineral wool thermal insulation products used in buildings can save energy equivalent to one ton of oil a year, while every kilogram of polyurethane material (a wall thermal insulation material) used in buildings can reduce emissions equivalent to 755 kilograms in its average service life.
There have been some high-profile fire incidents in NSW in recent years, not all of which are related to thermal insulation building materials. For example, a serious fire broke out in an apartment building in Bankstown, Sydney on 20/2/Kloc, which led to the death of Connie, a female student studying in China, when she jumped from the fire. Another female student from China, Jiang,
The coroner's court was informed that the apartment building did not have proper fire safety requirements, including that before the fire broke out, sprinklers were not installed and fire safety measures were not in place.
It can be seen that what really needs to be revised is more detailed and specific fire safety-related laws and regulations, from building materials, fire protection measures to the popularization of fire escape safety knowledge.
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Australia is in the construction boom, and our top priority is to have first-class fire certification laws to meet the current and future needs. "
In addition, the current situation also puts forward higher requirements for the whole real estate industry from the aspects of government, builders, developers, real estate sales agents and property management of apartment buildings. Every link should be responsible to the customer. Among them, the government should carry out the audit as soon as possible and make the results public; Construction developers should strictly abide by industry regulations and moral bottom line; Real estate sales agents and building property management should immediately verify whether there is a fire hazard in the property they are responsible for, and truthfully inform customers.
From the building to the daily fire protection measures are interlocking, and the lack of any link will lead to incalculable consequences.
Generally speaking, all energy conservation and emission reduction should be based on bringing a better and greener future to residents. Installing flammable building materials on the exterior wall of residential buildings is tantamount to burying fire. Residents worry that their lives will be burned every day, and beauty is out of the question.
Even if the country wants to save energy and the builders want to make money, they should also reassure the residents that there are some contradictions between them, which deserves a better solution.