Culminating Project- U.S. Federal Courthouse

The purpose of this report is to select and evaluate a building for compliance with prescriptive and performance based requirements, that apply the concepts learned from previous courses taken as part of the master’s fire protection engineering degree curriculum at Cal Poly, San Luis Obisbo. The report discusses applicable code requirements for building construction, egress, fire alarm initiation and notification, and fire suppression and evaluates the building’s performance, including Occupant movement, when subjected to two assumed fires. Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) was used to generate data used during the performance analysis. The performance analysis reveals that meeting prescriptive requirements doesn’t necessarily guarantee Occupant safety. The report concludes with recommendations to improve Occupant safety. Annex material contains protocols for final acceptance testing, post-occupancy operation and maintenance procedures, staff training and the Occupant Emergency Plan. The subject of this report is a new federal courthouse. The building contains four courtroom, a jury assembly room, numerous offices, shops and an indoor parking garage. The building is four stories in height, with a basement. The building comprises an area of approximately 115,000 square feet (10,700 square meters), has a 71 foot (22 m) high roof and cost approximately $70,000,000 to construct. The building is a reinforced concrete frame structure with architectural recast and handset stone skin that is completely protected by a quick response sprinkler system