This review summarizes the history of fire resistance testing and its impact on the formulation of the present standard. It focuses on studies from the 1880s to 1918.
FOR NEARLY the last six decades in the United States, fire endurance design for buildings has been based on Standard El19 of the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM).' While numerous minor changes have been made, the time-temperature curve, the basic test apparatus, and some of the criteria have remained unchanged. Component test methods established in other parts of the world have, until recently, likewise been modeled on Ell9. Engineering advances in the calculation of expected fires in buildings have been made continuaUy over the last two decades. ~ Engineered design methods have also come to be available; yet the sixty-year-old methodology incorporated in most U.S. building codes has not been supplanted. Thus, it becomes important to carefully review the data on which the fire test standard was based. A thorough examination of the basis for traditional fire testing can then be used to analyze any benefits of more recently available design procedures.
