With load tests still underway to improve the performance-based design of a cutting-edge office-tower core wall, researchers at Purdue University are gearing up to do a related study: fire tests to determine the fire performance of the wall’s coupled steel-plate modules filled with rebar-free concrete.
And in another step forward for the first use of the shear-wall system—intended to speed construction—the Seattle buildings department has approved a request for sprayed-on fire resistance on only the outer surface of the core of the 850-ft-tall Rainier Square Tower.