Rule ID: SUK/1004/v2.1
Important
Changes and improvements to the Fire Stopping rules may have an impact on any existing results, please take the time to review to the changes. See Update Log for BIM Coordination + Extension.
This article describes the Fire Stopping Compatibility Rule that has been developed by Solibri UK Ltd as part of the BIM Coordination + Library.
The rule is available for Solibri Office 9.13.7 or later via a Solibri Extension, which can be downloaded from the Solibri Solution Center.
The article covers the following topics:
Related articles:
Important
This rule requires connection to an external spreadsheet and the Service Compatibility sheet and, where necessary, the Service Types sheet. A copy of this default template for all Fire Stopping rules FireStoppingRequirements.xlsx can be downloaded at the end of the Introduction article through the link in the description (info view), for the selected rule in the checking view.
This rule is used to ensure that service types within the same penetration are allowed.
The rule first checks to ensure all components filtered as services are classified by the Service Classification, returning a low severity result of all unclassified components. The rule then finds all penetrations of service components with compartmentation and fire seals through their corresponding filters, while ignoring any partial penetrations where the service does not run completely through one side of the fire seal and out the other. Each pair of services within the same fire seal is checked for compatibility. The Service Compatibility tab within a .xlsx spreadsheet defines what service types are allowed within the same fire seal based on their classification name from the service classification. The rule returns Critical severity results for the following
-
Services that are in the same fire seal with incompatible service types,
-
Services that can only share a fire seal with their own service type
-
Services that cannot share a fire seal with any other service i.e. a singular penetration
Service Types Sheet
Penetrations that contain only one classified service require no further configuration before checking. Where a penetrating service is made up of multiple classified service components which are not classified using the same classification name, for example, ducts that support fire/smoke dampers, these need to be merged to act as one service using the Services Types Sheet as shown below. Failing to do this will automatically create a partial penetration of the service through the compartmentation, thus ignoring them. The Main Service Type can be used to check the compatibility requirements in the Service Compatibility Sheet.
Example of merging Ducts with a Damper
Specify the classified service for the the Main Service Type and then in the Mergeable Service Types column specify the classified services that will be merged. Multiple mergeable services can be listed using semi colons as a delimiter between values. A Merge Gap Tolerance value in mm can be added to bridge any component modelling gaps or ignored using 0 for the value. Then simply specify using an x in the column to which rules this configuration needs to apply to. This sheet also supports the use of wildcards.
Results where services are merged will report the Service Type as Main Service Type : Mergeable Service Type as indicated in the results image below.
In the Parameters View, you can define the compartmentation, services, and fire seals to check for service type compatibility. Alternatively use a predefined Common Parameter Name configuration to consistently utilise the same values for parameters within multiple fire stopping rules, essentially configuring the values only once.
Important
Although only the services and fire seals filters of these rules require users to set up classifications it is good practice to also use classifications for the compartmentation. The benefits are as follows:
-
To structure the model geometry allowing easy identification and visualization in the classification and providing a clear indication of what will be checked
-
Where present, Services and Fire Penetration Seals will require classification values to interact with the FireStoppingRequirements.xlsx spreadsheet
Tip
The screenshots shown here have been taken from the FireStoppingRequirement_EXAMPLE.xlsx spreadsheet which is available for download from the end of the Introduction article.
Rule Parameters View:
Rule parameters indicating a more generic service inclusion
Important
Please ensure that all elements are classified, or you have restricted the filter in the Settings tab of the Classification to limit the components to be classified.
Tip
The Services and Fire Seals filters in this instance are using the operator Is Defined to filter all classified services and fire seals. This negates having to use the One of operator, ensuring that you have all values selected. Updates to the classification are also applied automatically.
-
Common Parameters Name: The dropdown list displays the available pre-configured Common Parameter Names. Selecting a pre-configured value from the list automatically hides any common parameters and utilises the definitions in the named common parameter setup. Each filter or parameter controlled by the Common Parameter Name set up can be overridden if required using the override buttons and then configured manually within the rule. For common Parameter Name values see configuring the Common Parameter Rule.
Rule Parameters using Common Parameter Name
-
Walls Filter: Defines the compartmentation walls that will be checked. The rule only checks the compatibility of services that run through these filtered compartmentation components.
-
Floors Filter: Defines the compartmentation floors that will be checked. The rule only checks the compatibility of services that run through these filtered compartmentation components.
-
Services (will exclude Fire Seals) filter: Defines the service components that will have their compatibility checked.
-
Service Classification: Select the classification that contains the classified services that are defined in the services filter. The Service Type Column on the Service Compatibility sheet in the Requirements spreadsheet file references the classifications names from this Services Classification to define their requirements.
-
Fire Seals filter: Defines the fire seal components that will have services within them checked for compatibility.
-
Fire Seal on Wall Reduction Tolerance: Defines the dimension that the fire seal (body for calculation) will be reduced by, either side in order to ensure services fully penetrate the fire seal.
-
Fire Seal on Floor Reduction Tolerance: Defines the dimension that the fire seal (body for calculation) will be reduced, both from the top and bottom to ensure services full penetrate the fire seal.
Note
Models that may have been exported split by level or if service joins occur around the face of the fire seal, services will not fully penetrate the fire seal. Set a small value to effectively reduced the width (walls) or depth (floors) of the fire seal for successfully detecting services if required.
Fire seal depth reduced both sides by the Fire Seal on Wall Reduction Tolerance value - Used to ensure full penetration of services, not for other functions of the rule.
Fire seal depth reduced from the top / bottom by the Fire Seal on Floor Reduction Tolerance value - Used to ensure full penetration of services, not for other functions of the rule.
-
Requirements File Path: Browse and select the requirements spreadsheet file (xlsx) that contains both the Service Types (if mergeable services are used) and the Service Compatibility sheets used to define the dimensional requirements of the distance check between services.
Service Compatibility sheet parameters:
-
Service Type: This cell contains the classification name from the Services Classification to define service types that will be compared with the Compatible Service Types cell values.
Tip
To ensure that there are no text errors you can create a list of values from the classification Settings page by exporting it to Excel - as long as all values are present and have been added.
-
Compatible Service Types (other than itself, separated by semicolons, can contain wildcards): This cell contains the name(s) to match the Services classification of other service types that are allowed in the same fire seals as the classification name from the Service Type cell. If nothing is listed, the Service Type is incompatible with other service types i.e. single service type penetration. If multiple names are listed, those compatible service type names must be separated by semicolons (;). The use of the Asterisks (*) and Question Mark (?) and double hyphen (--) wildcard characters can be used to match names as below...
-
* Matches 0 or more characters
-
? Matches exactly 1 character
-
-- Matches anything but what comes after the double dash
-
Tip
Classify your services to the level of granularity that you require in the Service Distance tab. This could be as granular as individual service sizes (for example Copper Pipes 22 mm, Copper Pipes 15 mm), or could be grouped (for example all plastic pipes less than 150 mm). Utilising a different classification so that early checks do not require the same level of granularity required in other Fire Stopping rules will provide flexibility. The services example above is defined to give an indication of how the rule functions.
Each rule that references the Requirements spreadsheet file (such as FireStoppingRequirements.xlsx) may reference singular or multiple tabs. As such, you can separate these workbooks to provide greater flexibility.
To ensure that there are no text errors (typos) you can create a list of values from the classification Settings page by exporting to Excel as long as all values are present.
The Rule Results are arranged into three categories:
-
Incompatible Service Types
This category lists Critical (
) Severity results of the specific service types that differ within the same fire seal that are incompatible with one another as shown below:
-
Singular Service Type
This category lists Critical (
-
Unclassified Services
This category has a single Low (
) Severity result listing all components filtered by the Services filter parameter table that are to be checked but are unclassified by the Services Classification as shown below:
Severity Parameters
In addition, you can specify the Severity classes according to your preferences and priorities in the Severity Parameters dialog. For example, you can filter specific service types to have low or critical severity incompatibility results.