Special Issue on Facade Flammability and Fire Engineering

Excerpt

The building facade is one of the most important aspects of an architectural design, taking up around 15%–25% of the total construction cost. From the engineering perspective, a facade performs multiple objectives, e.g. shielding the building from harsh wind, rain, sunlight, and sound; and it also has a significant role in energy saving and keeping the building temperature at a comfortable level. Today, the energy consumption associated with buildings has reached nearly 40% in Europe and more extremely 80% in Hong Kong. Therefore, developing an energy-saving building facade has been a topic of enormous interest globally over the last 50 years. Many buildings have installed facade systems with excellent thermal insulation performance, but they are unfortunately not ready for the associated fire hazard. …