The Association for Specialist Fire Protection (ASFP) has expanded its range of guidance with the release of three new and three updated documents covering steel beams, firestopping of metal pipes, and planned maintenance.

The first document, Advisory Note 27, provides advice on the structural fire protection of steel beams with corrugated webs which were recently introduced to the market and offer a thinner steel plate than can be used in traditional webs.

The fire-resisting performance of these sections is not fully understood and so the advisory note warns against the use of plain section data in support of a corrugated web section without extra testing.

Advisory Note 28 covers the firestopping of metal pipes where flanges are located close to service penetration seals and encourages earlier involvement of passive fire specialists to prevent the construction of untested service penetration arrangements, particularly in the presence of flanges within the secondary insulation zone.

The guidance says that for the avoidance of issues with certification and installation it is best to keep the flanges more than 500mm away from the wall, pointing out that this detail is not always considered during the spatial coordination of services. 

The final new publication, Advisory Note 29 covers planned maintenance and draws upon advice from within the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order; BS 9999: Code of practice for fire safety in the design, management and use of buildings; and BS 8524: Active fire curtain barrier assemblies to ensure that a competent person conducts that maintenance

Meanwhile, Advisory Note 21 has been updated covering coatback to secondary structural steel, highlighting thatthat this can prevent conduction of heat into a primary structural member and its consequent early failure.

Technical Guidance Documents (TGDs) 15 and 20 have also been revised, with the former giving advice on the installation and inspection of spray-applied passive fire protection. The document has been updated to align the film thickness measurement criteria and to take the implications of Brexit into account and the consequent changes to UK Construction Product regulations.

The changes to UK Construction Product regulations and the introduction of the UKCA mark also prompted the revision of TGD 20, which covers the CE marking of fire-resisting and smoke control duct sections. 

All the documents are available for download from the Publications area of the ASFP website.