Steel Association "Expecting Improved Fire Safety with Sandwich Panel Structure Enhancement"

[Asia Economy Reporter Park So-yeon] The Steel Structure Center of the Korea Iron & Steel Association stated on the 5th that the government's measure to apply steel plates with long-lasting fire resistance performance to sandwich panels will greatly help prevent the spread of fire in buildings.

Earlier, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced a partial amendment to the standards for fire resistance performance and fire spread prevention structure of building finishing materials on the 28th of last month (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Notice No. 2020-1053).

Previously, regulations on steel plates for sandwich panels (composite materials) existed only for fire-retardant materials, and there were no such regulations for non-combustible and quasi-non-combustible materials. The background of the amendment is that the omission of standards for composite material steel plates in non-combustible and quasi-non-combustible materials, which require higher safety, has threatened the lives and safety of the public.

In fact, at some construction sites, there were many cases exploiting the omission of steel plate plating amount standards (180g/㎡ or more) and thickness standards (0.5㎜ or more) for higher fire-retardant grades (non-combustible and quasi-non-combustible) that should have stricter fire safety standards.

For example, there were issues where steel plates with fire resistance performance below the standard or steel plates much thinner than the thickness standard of 0.5㎜, such as 0.298㎜, were installed.

Accordingly, the amendment includes detailed standards for plating amount and steel plate thickness as measures to diversify the types of steel plates constituting composite materials and to prevent deterioration of fire resistance performance due to aging. In addition, it contains improvements to the evaluation methods for fire resistance performance of finishing materials and mandatory labeling of anti-forgery devices on test reports.

The Korea Iron & Steel Association said, "To enhance effectiveness, the association plans to produce leaflets to guide building owners and construction industry executives and employees on the amendment contents, such as methods to detect forgery of quality-related submission documents (quality inspection certificates, fire resistance performance test reports), and will propose to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to strengthen monitoring of steel plates for sandwich panels."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.