Mechanical integrity of gas turbine enclosure doors under fire test conditions for A0 fire rating

Abstract

Purpose

As fire doors are passive fire protection parts, the doors have to be certified through standard fire tests. It is usual practice to perform the standard fire testing on the components which require the fire certification. However, some gas turbine enclosure doors are too large to test at the test facility and hence the fire resistance test is practically not possible. The purpose of this paper is to develop a reliable finite element model, validate the model using the specimen door test results and extend the method to actual gas turbine enclosure doors to support the fire certification.

Design/methodology/approach

First, the standard fire testing on enclosure door test specimen was carried out. Second, the finite element analysis model was built and tuned to match the standard fire test deflections, and finally, the same modelling technique was extended to model the actual gas turbine enclosure door to verify the results for fire certification process.

Findings

Gap analysis, a method of post processing is suggested for result analysis. It was found suitable to verify the gap openings which are required for A0 rated fire certification according to fire test procedure code and also to check the mechanical integrity of the enclosure door frame assembly.

Originality/value

The method presented in this work could be used as support information along with the test specimen results for A0 class fire rating certification of the doors according to International Maritime Organization Resolution MSC.307 (88) Annexure 1: Part 3.

Citation

Sathujoda, P., Arnell, P. and Deans, A. (2019), "Mechanical integrity of gas turbine enclosure doors under fire test conditions for A0 fire rating", Journal of Structural Fire Engineering, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 76-89. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSFE-12-2017-0045