Introduction

Whether it is a urban or rural place, fire stations are needed for communities in case of a fire. Fire stations, also known as fire house or fire hall, are multi functional buildings which provide storage for equipments and vehicles, living space for fire fighters, training rooms or sometimes fitness rooms. Fire engines are stored in a space called apparatus bay, it is required to be resistant to heavy loads of the vehicles. The entrance road to the fire station or driveway faces heavy loads like apparatus bay that is why it requires more strength than most other roads. Also building should be fire proof so materials should be chosen carefully. Therefore fire stations need to be constructed accordingly. The service life of an average fire station is around 50 years [1]. In the next part, the purpose, scope, its intended users and its intended use will be explained briefly.

Figure 1: A Fire station apparatus bay example

Purpose

Purpose of this fire station ontology was modelling a fire station building to make it more comprehensible, preventing any miscommunications for design, construction or maintenance by showing its components, subclasses and different design options. One of the purposes of this ontology was creating a project that could be followed and constructed as suggested and that was an engineering challenge.

Scope

Scope of this ontology contains materials, structural components, uses of the structure and design options for the structure.

Intended Users

Intended users of this ontology were for designer teams, engineers, construction workers, maintenance crews and fire fighters in case of a possible feedback for change in the design.

Intended Use

Intended use of this ontology can be understanding what kind of parts a fire station has and understanding the conceptual design in basics. This ontology can be modified and be improved upon as a more detailed and compact project.

1

Background Research for Fire Stations

Fire stations are very common buildings and information about many topics and sources for it can be found easily however most sources were from United States of America. That is why I chose to comply with standards of USA. Research for what fire stations are used for and what kind of spaces or rooms they contain was made. It was searched for the types of foundations used for fire stations, pavement materials for the driveway and the building, necessary measurements for apparatus bay width and length, ceiling height, floor slab and foundation thickness etc.

After the background research about fire station standards about sizes, health codes, materials and uses were done, the taxonomy of this ontology was completed like this as follows:

Physical Components

Substructure
Concrete floor slab

Concrete foundation wall Sand blinding
Hardfill

Superstructure Columns

Beams Slab Roof

Main Material

Asphalt Concrete Masonry Steel Others

Uses (Functions)

Apparatus bay (Storage for vehicles) Living space
Training use
Storage use (For equipments)

Physical Components:

Physical components were divided into two parts as superstructure which are the visible parts and substructure of the building which is below the surface level. Superstructure is the part that carries the live load. Live load and the weight of the superstructure gets transferred to substructure.

Main Materials:

Main materials for this ontology were selected as concrete, steel, masonry and asphalt. Asphalt was mainly used for pavement of the driveway. Masonry was used in the walls in superstructure and and foundation walls in substructure. Concrete was used in sand blinding in substructure; and it was used in slabs, columns and beams in superstructure. Steel was used with concrete mostly, since reinforced concrete are stronger and more durable. Columns, beams, slabs and foundation walls included steel. Wood materials could have been used but was chosen not to do even though wood materials can be fireproof enough with paintings.

2

Uses (Functions)

This ontology can be used to understand components, functions, structural configuration, standards and necessities of a fire station better.

Creating An Ontology With Protégé

An ontology was developed with 5 subclasses which are fire station building, fire station driveway, fire station domain, fire station uses and main materials. Under the fire station uses subclass multifunctionalities of the fire station such as living space, apparatus bay (for vehicle storing), equipment storage and training uses were defined in the Protégé. Fire station domain had 2 subclasses as superstructure and substructure. The substructure of this fire station ontology was a concrete slab foundation [2] therefore substructure comprised of concrete foundation wall, concrete slab foundation, hardfill and sand blinding. Superstructure comprised of beams, columns, slabs and roof. Fire station building and fire station driveway had 2 design options. And main materials were entered in the main materials subclass. As Noy and McGuinness stated[3], the goal of this ontology was to include common understanding of the structure, reusability of domain knowledge, explicit domain assumptions and analysis of domain knowledge. Taxonomy hierarchy was arranged and classes were defined.

Figure 2: Class hierarchy of the fire station ontology 3

Design Options

Two design options were created for fire station ontology. Second design option had components with larger measurements while design option 1 was tried to kept minimal. Table 1 below shows the measurements of superstructures and apparatus bay. By the standards ceiling of the apparatus bay has to be at least 16 feet (4,88m)[4], that is why heights were chosen 5 and 6 meters. Minimum width and length for a standard structural apparatus for a one-company fire Station can be 45 feet (13,71m) and 91 feet(27,74m) respectively. Design option 1 was thought as a one company fire station so apparatus bay length and width were chosen 28 meters and 14 meters in order. A standard structural apparatus for a two and three-company fire station is 62 feet (18,89m) wide and 91 feet (27,74m) long. Design Option 2 was chosen as a multi company fire station so its apparatus bay was chosen as 20 meters wide and 30 meters long [3]. Slab thickness of the floor has to be at least 8 inches(0,20m) [5] therefore slab thicknesses of two options were chosen as 0,2 meter and 0,25 meter.

 

For fire station, two driveway designs were also made. It is suggested to have at least 6 inches (15 centimeters)[6] of asphalt thickness for heavy loads like fire trucks however the maximum limit for asphalt thickness is 8 inches (20 centimeters)[6]. Therefore asphalt thickness in the first design for driveway will be 15 centimeters due to having to carry less load and 20 centimeters in the second design option.

4

OntoGraf Representation

Results

Fire station ontology was defined with Protégé software. Structural configurations, relations between different parts, restrictions of classes, values and shapes of components, functions and designs were defined into the modelling. This Fire Station project could be linked to residential buildings by simply being near or under them. Fire stations standards are stricter than residential or most buildings so safety would not be a problem. Driveway could be connected to a highway or an inner-city road. Fire station could be near a park or a school so instant help could be offered.