Performance-Based Fire Safety Engineering Design in the Offshore Industry
Authors: Burton Gareth C. , Dorchak Charles J. 
Published: October 2008

A substantial revision to the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) Convention on the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) is due to enter into force on July 01, 2002. This text, along with a supporting IMO Circular, sets forth a procedure for accepting fire safety engineering aspects of vessel designs, which deviate from the strict prescriptive regulations of the Convention. It is anticipated that this alternative performancebased approach will ultimately have significant practical and economic influence on fire safety engineering design in the offshore industry.

Evidence for the assertion that performance-based approaches will be adopted in the fire safety engineering design of offshore facilities are provided through examples of their increased use within land-based construction regulations, classification society rules and the general maritime industry. In addition, comparisons are made with the development of regulations within the United Kingdom sector of the offshore market. Fire safety engineering tools, which are available for use in the performance-based design process, are introduced, followed by a section on the perceived influences, including the proactive potential, of alternative design approaches on the offshore industry.

Introduction

In the last two decades, many land-based building codes have undergone substantial revisions, incorporating a fire safety engineering approach as an alternative to strict compliance with the traditional prescriptive regulations. In these performance-based codes, the necessary fire safety measures are dictated by the unique physical and operational characteristics of each building in conjunction with the principles of fire science. As a result, these revised building codes no longer require fire safety measures to be provided based solely on the generic classification of each space.

Within the general maritime industry, there are similar changes taking place including the publication of a guide by the United States Coast Guard outlining the alternative fire safety engineering approach for use in the design of passenger vessels. This global transition to a performance-based design methodology is reflected within the revised edition of the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) Convention on the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) [1]. This publication, which is due to enter into force on July 01, 2002, is expected to have significant practical and economic influence on the fire safety engineering aspects of the offshore industry.

This paper commences with a description of the current fire safety related regulatory framework for offshore drilling units. The recent amendments to the SOLAS Convention are then introduced along with a description, and practical examples, of both prescriptive and performance-based regulations. The benefits and drawbacks of the performancebased approach are introduced, followed by a detailed description of the performance-based methodology, as advocated by the IMO. The global and classification society perspective of performance-based regulations are outlined along with examples of the computer-based methods available for use within the discipline of fire safety engineering. The paper concludes with a description of the perceived influence of performance-based design on the offshore industry.