9.

5 Fire resistance
In the absence of specific information, choose a fire-resistance period of 1 hour for the superstructure
and 2 hours for ground floor construction over a basement and the basement structure.
Fire protection material must be sufficiently robust to withstand local damage during the
normal use of the structure. Local building regulations should be consulted for requirements,
which may be more severe than those shown above.
More detailed guidance is given in:
• BS 5950-8:200314
• Fire protection for structural steel in buildings15
• Guidelines for the construction of fire resisting structural elements23
• Structural fire safety: A handbook for architects and engineers29.

9.6 Corrosion protection

For multi-storey buildings on non-polluted inland sites general guidance on systems for protection
of steelwork in certain locations follows. For other environments and for more detailed advice,
reference should be made to BS 5493:197730 and to publications from Corus, the British
Constructional Steelwork Association, the Zinc Development Association and the Paintmakers
Association. The general guidance is as follows.

Steelwork integral with external cladding, particularly where not readily accessible for
inspection and maintenance
• concrete encasement, or
• an applied coating system to give very long life such as:
– hot-dip galvanize to BS EN ISO 1461:199931 (85μm), or
– blast clean SA2½, isocyanate pitch epoxy (450μm) (BS 5493:197730, system
reference SK8)

Internal steelwork not readily accessible, subject to condensation and/or significant

corrosion risk
A system to give long to very long life depending on corrosion risk such as:
• blast clean SA2½, coal-tar epoxy (l50μm), (SK5), or
• blast clean SA2½, 2 pack zinc-rich epoxy (70μm), epoxy MIO (l25μm), (SL3)

External exposed steelwork, accessible

A system to give medium life (or longer with appropriate maintenance cycles) such as:
• blast clean SA2½, HB zinc phosphate (70μm), modified alkyd (70μm), alkyd finish
(35μm), (SF7)

Internal steelwork, heated building with negligible corrosion risk

It is feasible to avoid treatment altogether in the right environment. It is common in high
rise structures, where the steel is dry and fully shielded from the weather, not to provide any
protection, other than that needed to give fire resistance or decoration, to the structure.

IStructE/ICE Manual for the design of steelwork building structures 3rd edition 47