A Comparative Analytical Study of Some External Finishing (Cladding) Material in Terms of Their Ability to Spread Fire in Multi-story Building Facades in Iraq

The traditional building in Iraq characterised by the using of a certain number of finishing's in external façades like cement plastering, limestone and perforated yellow brick because the raw materials of manufacturing are available locally. Fire spread through the facades is widely recognized as one of the fastest pathways of fire spreading in the buildings, so the appropriate choose of highly performance finishing material against fire will be potentially the main factor in controlling the fire and suppressed it. This study uses computer modeling and fire simulation technology of Pyrosim, FDS and smoke view to compare the difference between the performance of some traditional finishing materials like cement plastering, limestone and perforated yellow brick with the ACPs and their speed to transfer fire from floor to floor if used in multi storey buildings. The study highlighted that traditional finishing materials are more efficient than modern cladding materials and that the performance of ACP-PE is the worst among the materials examined by this study. Moreover, the cement plastering is the worst among the traditional local finishing materials.