Rule ID: SUK/1006/v1.0
This article describes the Fire Stopping Distance Rule that has been developed by Solibri UK Ltd as part of the BIM Coordination + Library.
The rule is available for Solibri Office 9.13.1 or later via a Solibri Extension, which can be downloaded from the Solibri Solution Center.
The article covers the following topics:
Important
This rule requires connection to an external spreadsheet and the Fire Seal and Service Distance sheet, Service Distance in Fire Seal 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 or through the description in the checking view for the highlighted rule.
This rule is used to ensure that allowed services have the required specific space to the edges of the fire seal as well as to other allowed services within the same file seal.
The rule first checks that all components filtered as Services have their service types classified by the Services Classification and all components filtered as Fire Seals have their fire seal types classified by the Fire Seal Classification. 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 doesn’t run completely through one side of the fire seal and out the other.
Those penetrations are checked to ensure that the service is allowed in the fire seal, completely resides within the fire seal, and is the correct minimum and maximum distances from the edges of the fire seal. A Fire Seal and Service Distance sheet within an .xlsx file defines these requirements based on the Fire Seal and Service Types. The penetrations are further checked to ensure that the service types in the same seal are compatible with each other and that their distance is within the minimum and maximum requirements from one another. A Service Distance in Fire Seal sheet within an .xlsx file defines these requirements based on the Service Types Fire Seal classification name.
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Service to edge of fire seal issue
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Service to edge of fire seal and service to service issues
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, 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.
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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. Separate multiple mergeable services using semi colons. Then simply specify using an x which rules this configuration needs to apply to. This also supports the use of wildcards.
In the Parameters view, you can define the compartmentation, services, fire seals, and requirements file containing the service distance requirements sheets.
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:
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Helps to structure the model geometry allowing easy identification and visualization in the classification providing a clear indication of what will be checked
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Where present, Services and Fire Penetration Seals will require classification values to interact with the FireStoppingRequirements.xlsx
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:
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Example Parameters - note the Compartmentation Walls and Floors should ideally be from a Classification
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Compartmentation filter: Defines the compartmentation walls and floors that will be checked. The rule only checks the distance requirements of services that run through these filtered compartmentation components.
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Services (will exclude Fire seals) filter: Defines the service components that will have their distance requirements checked.
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Services Classification: Defines the name of the Classification for your service types. The columns referencing these within Fire Seal and Service Distance and Service Distance in Fire Seal sheets of the Requirements file match with classifications names from this Services Classification to define their compatibility and distance requirements
Tip
Copy and paste the Classification name directly from the Settings tab of the Classification used to define your services to ensure there are no errors
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Fire Seals filter: Defines the fire seal components that will have services within checked for compatibility and distance requirements of the services.
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Fire seals Classification: Defines the name of the Classification for your fire seal type. The fire seal types column within Fire Seal and Service Distance and Service Distance in Fire Seal sheets of the Requirements file, match with classifications names from this Fire seals Classification, to define their compatibility and distance requirements of service penetrations that run through them.
Tip
Copy and paste the Classification name directly from the Settings tab of the Classification used to define your services to ensure there are no errors
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Fire seal ID Property Reference: Specifies the property of the fire seal to categorize results by in the results view.
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Requirements File Path: Defines the full file path to the spreadsheet (xlsx) that contains the “Fire Seal and Service Distance” and “Service Distance in Fire Seal” sheets used to define required distances between services/services and fire seals.
Tip
Requirements File Path – Copy the location from the path in Windows Explorer or from a macOS command window to ensure there are no errors
Fire Seal and Service Distance sheet parameters:
Important
All distance values used in these two sheets do not take into account fire stopping products around services such as sleeves – therefore any values specified need to take these additional values into account.
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Fire Seal Types (separated by semicolons, can contain wildcards): This cell contains the fire seal type name(s) to match from the Fire seals classification to define their contained service penetration distance requirements. If multiple names are listed, those fire seal 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...
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* Matches 0 or more characters
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? Matches exactly 1 character
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-- Matches anything but what comes after the double dash
Important
The File Seal Types entered in column A of either the Fire Seal and Service Distance or Service Distance in Fire Seal sheet will need to be classified within Solibri. The classification name should relate to the type of Fire Seal not each individual instance as this is covered by the Fire Seal ID Property Reference value within the rule parameters. As the project progresses these may go from generic to specific manufacture ID’s for their approved test conditions.
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Allowed Service Types (separated by semicolons, can contain wildcards): This cell contains the name(s) to match from the Services classification of service types that are allowed within the fire seal. If multiple names are listed, those 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...
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* Matches 0 or more characters
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? Matches exactly 1 character
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-- 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 i.e. Copper Pipes 22mm, Copper Pipes 15mm, or could be grouped i.e. all plastic pipes less than 150mm. Utilising a different classification so that early checks do not require the same level of granularity required in some of the 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 FireStoppingRequirements.xlsx may reference singular or multiple tabs as such you can separate these workbooks if it provides greater flexibility.
To ensure that there are no typo’s you can create a list of values from the classification Settings page by exporting to Excel as long as all values are present and have been added.
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Distance between Services and Fire Seal edges (empty for unbounded) Minimum (mm): This cell contains the minimum distance in millimeters that edge of the defined fire seal type(s) must be from the service of the defined service type(s). The value must either be a positive numerical value or empty for unbounded.
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Distance between Services and Fire Seal edges (empty for unbounded) Maximum (mm): This cell contains the maximum distance in millimeters that edge of the defined fire seal type(s) must be from the service of the defined service type(s). The value must either be a positive numerical value or empty for unbounded.
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Issue Category (empty for default): This cell contains optional text that will be included in addition to the default titles of service to fire seal edge violation results found for the defined fire seal types.
Service Distance in Fire Seal sheet parameters:
Important
All distance values used in these two sheets do not take into account fire stopping products around services such as sleeves – therefore any values specified need to take these additional values into account.
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Fire Seal Types (separated by semicolons, can contain wildcards): This cell contains the fire seal type name(s) to match from the Fire seals classification to define their contained service penetration distance requirements. If multiple names are listed, those fire seal 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...
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* Matches 0 or more characters
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? Matches exactly 1 character
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-- Matches anything but what comes after the double dash
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Source Service Types (separated by semicolons, can contain wildcards): This cell contains the name(s) to match from the Services classification of source service types that are allowed within the fire and distance requirements. If multiple names are listed, those 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...
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* Matches 0 or more characters
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? Matches exactly 1 character
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-- Matches anything but what comes after the double dash
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Target Service Types (separated by semicolons, can contain wildcards): This cell contains the name(s) to match from the Services classification of target service types to check for their compatibility with both the fire seal and source service types and have distance requirements. If multiple names are listed, those 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...
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* Matches 0 or more characters
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? Matches exactly 1 character
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-- Matches anything but what comes after the double dash
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Distance between Source and Target Service Types (empty for unbounded) Minimum (mm): This cell contains the minimum distance in millimeters that the defined source and target service type(s) must be from one another. The value must either be a positive numerical value or empty for unbounded.
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Distance between Source and Target Service Types (empty for unbounded) Maximum (mm): This cell contains the minimum distance in millimeters that the defined source and target service type(s) must be from one another. The value must either be a positive numerical value or empty for unbounded.
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Issue Category (empty for default): This cell contains optional text that will be included in addition to the default titles of service-to-service distance violation results found for the defined fire seal types.
The rule results of varying severity are arranged into four categories.
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Fire seal ID Property Reference
The rule creates a category using the Fire Seal ID Property Reference value for all fire seals with service penetrations that have compatibility or distance requirement violations. The following are the types of results listed:
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Critical severity (
) results for service types that are not allowed in the fire seal type. -
Moderate severity (
) results for service penetrations that either are too close to the edge of the Fire Seal or within the permissible distances between same service or different service types. -
Low severity (
) results for services that aren’t fully inside the fire seal
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Errors in checking
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Service to Fire seal: These services are not allowed inside the fire seal. If nothing is specified
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Service to Service Missing Fire Seal definition: When fire seals that are classified by the Fire Seals classification to be checked, but do not have a row listing those service types in the requirements file, a medium severity result with a description of Distance requirement between service type and service type is unspecified in the Fire Seal
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Unclassified Fire Seals: This category has a single low severity (
) result listing all components filtered by the Fire Seals filter parameter table what were to be checked but are unclassified by the Fire Seals classification -
Unclassified Services: This category has a single low severity (
) result listing all components filtered by the Services filter parameter table what were to be checked but are unclassified by the Services classification.
Controlling the Issue Title:
Issue result titles are created based on the following logic.
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Illustration of title composition
Therefore, two parts of the issue title can be controlled by the user.
Severity:
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 fire seal components to have critical or low severity results based on their Fire Seal type.