1. FM has Approval Standard 693 wherein some non-water based fire-resistant hydraulic fluids are certified.
2. There are tests for noncombustibility, from ASTM, and they are cited in NFPA 130 and NFPA 101. 3. Approval using interpretation from the AHJ, which takes into consideration occupancy and use. Consider a long analogy and seque below, which I apologize to the Forum in advance for. The "Metro" standard deals with noncombustibility, because 'Metro occupancies' allow themselves in a non-simple, non-clear way to be non-sprinklered, according to the NFPA committee members who do write to me. We probably find such an admirable treatment of " noncombustibility" within the covers of NFPA 130, the rail and rail / train station fire design guide from NFPA, because they has such a miserable treatment of sprinkler design and incongruency with their objective statement at Section 4.2.2. Take a look at the admirable treatment of combustibility prescriptions copy-pasted from the 2017 edition. 4.6* Noncombustible Material. 4.6.1* A material that complies with any of the following shall be considered a noncombustible material: [ 101: 4.6.13.1] (1) A material that, in the form in which it is used and under the conditions anticipated, will not ignite, burn, support combustion, or release …ammable vapors, when subjected to ‚re or heat. [ 101: 4.6.13.1(1)] (2) A material that is reported as passing ASTM E136. [ 101: 4.6.13.1(2] (3) A material that is reported as complying with the pass/fail criteria of ASTM E136 when tested in accordance with the test method and procedure in ASTM E2652. [ 101:4.6.13.1(3)] More on judgment-with-uncertainty by fire plan reviewers. The IBC and its handbook, quite emphatically writes, "if you are an AHJ, you are paid to render expert judgment. There will be times this is difficult and you will have to interpret the intent of the Building Code. This is why we (insert your version of the Building Code here: IBC/California Building Code/ Texas Building Code, etc.) authorize the Building Code Official and their duly appointed deputes with the trust and expectation to interpret the intention of the Building Code. I add to the above, for those AHJ that are paid civil servants, they are government employees. As far as I can recall, government is elected to serve the people. The definition of what is ' service' changes with the times and conditions, but service should be to ' the will of the people' in the instances of elected governments. As such, it is the duty of the AHJ to educate themselves, learn the intent of the Code, seek advice, and then stand up and earn their money by making interpretations that are open, honest and simple-as-possible. It takes courage. There will be mistakes. I don't know of any AHJ's being legally punished for making mistakes, and there have been some deadly ones made in past, repeatedly. I know plenty of AHJ's that have been indirectly punished for not serving the will of well-healed corporations whom financed the building infrastructures. That is the politics of plan review. I have developed a tool that helps plan reviewers make judgments-with-uncertainties, as all judgments involving safety measured against Mother Nature, unavoidably involve uncertainty. The burden of uncertainty comes inherently with the territory of being a safety professional. If a plan reviewer wants to be 100% prescriptive... there is AI coming. As stated previously, AI already is replacing para-legals and junior lawyers who pour over volumes of codes and records searchnig for legal precedence. When you think about it, a prescriptive design guide is not much more than a big series of coded 'if - then ' statements. AI can search through all of our building safety references, standards and Building Codes and come back with a prescriptive judgment (if that is all we are offering) before we can boot up our computer. The future in plan check, is executing judgment-with-uncertainty and field inspections. Rote reading of the Code and standards is not only a *DIS*service to the public, and an indication that you may be overpaid as a safety professional (or overpaid as an entire organization, if that organization embraces a structure too prescriptively oriented). Being overly prescriptive is setting oneself up for obsolescence and eventual replacement by silicon-based neural networks. I offer training to plan reviewers, with a tool I have developed, for free. It is numeric, falsifiable, open, honest, and somewhat simple (a little bit of multiplication and addition involved). No jurisdiction on the planet has expressed any interest in it. Most fire plan reviewers are not known for being 'overly curious' personalities. And not too many people are able to recognize something of value when they have not seen it before... (how many of us bought into Microsoft, UPS or Amazon when we first heard about them)? Many in Code enforcement are anathema to creatively evaluating new designs, Alternative Materials, or making performance-based judgments. This tool puts structure into the process, while still asking for standup courageous decisions from not just the reviewers, but justifiably from all stakeholders with skin in. Due to paragraph 2 of page 2 of NFPA design guides, I don't see where NFPA has much skin in. The tool asks questions that life safety professional are paid to consider and render decisions upon (though precious few do in an open, honest or simple manner). " what are the worst-things that can happen?" " " how likely are these worst-case scenarios?" " can we accept them?" The last question is where not only courage comes in, but paradigm change. If the plan reviewer has a story in their head that they can not accept death from a design that they approve, then they have been reading the wrong book. Even prescriptive-based design and prescriptive codes accept-in-their-designs, the chance of death from Mother Nature, prescriptions just are not open or simple about this fact. Sure, prescriptive design may be fine from pursuit by legal-eagles, but even prescriptive designs are never completely sure they are clear from the talons of Mother Nature. As the tool is offered for free, there is no vested monetary interest in the above attempts to share information and improve good judgment in plan checking...or design. " Hominem unius libri timeo" " Beware the person of but one book" --Santo Tomas Aquinas Scot Deal Excelsior Risk & Fire Engineering gms: +420 606 872 129 On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 7:34 PM Steve Leyton via Sprinklerforum < [email protected]> wrote: > A client is wrestling with an AHJ regarding sprinkler exceptions in > elevator pits on a multi-building project. The issue is whether or not the > hydraulic fluid is noncombustible and the MSDS sheet from Chevron states, > “Not classified by OSHA as flammable or combustible.” It’s NFPA rated 1 > for flammability (it’s basically mineral oil) with a flashpoint of 356°F > and no Autoignition value is proffered. NFPA 220 §4.1.5.1 has a > definition but it’s for building materials – does anyone know if there’s an > overarching (“preferred”) definition in the NFPA code set for > “Noncombustible” as it applies to hydraulic elevator fluid? > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Sprinklerforum mailing list > [email protected] > > http://lists.firesprinkler.org/listinfo.cgi/sprinklerforum-firesprinkler.org >
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