A survey on potential uses of BIM in building fire protection

Abstract: The world’s population is increasing every year and the need for housing to keep up with the demand is evident. The building industry as a whole, including the discipline of fire protection are responsible to supply the housing. To achieve this, the industry must look for more effective ways to design and build, and the use of BIM could be useful to make necessary improvements in the industry. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the view of key fire protection stakeholders on the possibilities to make fire protection engineering more effective with the help of BIM. Furthermore, the goals are set to investigate to what extent BIM is used today in fire protection engineering and how its use can be expanded to increase the effectiveness of fire protection engineering. The methods for the study were a literature study and semi-structured interviews. The study shows that the use of BIM is more frequently used in new projects, however a majority of the fire protection engineers does not take full advantage of its uses. In addition, the study shows that there are benefits of implementing BIM in the field of fire protection and it could possibly help to make the fire protection engineering more effective. However, there are a lot of hurdles to overcome to make it work in the industry. These hurdles could for instance be that fire protection engineers lacks the education to work and communicate with other fields in a BIM environment and the current business model among consultant companies. There are several ways to get around the hurdles and working in teams could be one of them. As the use of BIM increases and is available for more and more buildings it could potentially also become a tool for the fire departments. The 3D-model in BIM could help the firefighters to increase their situational awareness and provide additional information of the buildings they intervene to. There are limitations for the practical implementation of this, but it could possibly help to save lives.