Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Abstract
Over the life cycle of a building it is often the case that the initial design is modified due to changes of
the building destination or occupancy, refurbishment works, maintenance, accidental factors and others. As the
safety of the building users remains the priority for all the code requirements, any change of the original design
must be evaluated and it should meet the minimum safety levels required by the standards. This paper presents a
review of a study case for the actual smoke ventilation capacity of an atrium after the original design has been
changed by the new building owners. It is investigated whether the natural or mechanical smoke control system
would be appropriate in the actual conditions.
Keywords: atrium, natural ventilation, neutral plane.
INTRODUCTION
Changes of a building destination, occupancy, modernisation or refurbishment works usually bring
irreversible modifications to the original design. The proposed design should have at least the same level of
safety for the occupants and to not compromise the overall structural stability. Most of the fire safety building
codes require the smoke layer to be maintained above the people’s head height. According to the Eurocodes, the
smoke layer should not drop below 2.5 m above the floor.
The smoke ventilation strategy in case of large spaces as atriums is largely influenced by the geometric
dimensions and the position of the atrium into the general layout of the building [1]. The separations of the
atrium from the adjacent spaces and the available openings to the ambient conditions are also critical factors
affecting the final design approach.
This paper presents an assessment of the ventilation system for the atrium located in the centre of a
three storey building. The atrium base, shown in Fig. 1, below, is a squared hall of 18m x 18m, designed as an
exhibition place and constituting the main assembly point of the building.
1
One side has the main entrance into the building and the other three have several doors connecting the
adjacent rooms of the building. The free height of the atrium is approximately 12.8 m. At the third floor,
surrounded by 2 m height glass wall, several windows were originally linked to the alarm system to open in case
of fire and maintain the smoke layer above the second floor openings. Since the layout of the groundfloor has
been modified, the original natural smoke ventilation strategy should be redesigned and updated to comply with
the fire safety requirements.
The intent of the new design has been to keep as much as possible from the original strategy, therefore
the aim of this study is to assess whether the smoke layer can be kept above the second level windows in the
atrium and what would be the total necessary outlet at the top of the atrium to maintain a natural ventilation of
the smoke and heat.
2
Tg and Ta represent the smoke and ambient air temperatures, respectively and t is the time until steady
state conditions are reached into the atrium. For this study it is estimated that t = 600 sec, meaning that the
smoke layer interface should be constant after 10 minutes from the fire initiation.
1.1.5 Heat release rate
The amount of combustible materials at the groundfloor level is limited and controlled. However, due to
the destination as an exhibition place, the thermal load is subject to variations in time. For this study, it is
assumed that a car may be displayed in the centre of the atrium at a certain point in time. Based on available test
data from the literature [4], a burning car could sustain a 5 MW fire.
The conservation of energy equation is used to express the energy balance for the upper layer. The
plume flow rate should be equal with the flow rate of hot gases exiting the compartment plus the heat lost to the
compartment boundaries.
Q̇ = mouṫ cp (Ta − Tg ) + qloss
̇ (3)
3
vin is the velocity of the fresh air into the compartment.
From Bernoulli principle, the velocity of the flow into the compartment can be expressed as:
2∆Pl
vin = √ (6)
ρa
Replacing the expression for velocity in equation (6), the pressure difference across the lower openings can be
written as:
ṁ 2
∆Pl = (7)
2ρa (Cd Ain )
Combining the equations (10) and (11), the mass flow rate through the upper vent becomes:
2 RESULTS
The area of the outlet openings is expressed, from equation (13), as:
ṁout 55.69
Aout = = (16)
Cd √2ρg[−∆Pl +(ρa −ρg)g(H−z)] 0.6√2∙0.983[−53.26+(1.2−0.983)9.81(12.8−9.5)]
4
The equation above does not have a natural solution, because the expression under radical, representing the
pressure difference across the upper vent, has a negative value. With the actual constraints, as the inlet area, Ain
= 8.2 m2 and the smoke layer height z = 9.5 m, it is not posible to reach steady state condition with natural
ventilation through the upper openings.
3 DISCUSSIONS
Inlet vs.outlet
120
100
Inlet area [m²]
80
60
40
20
0
6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26
Outlet area [m²]
Figure 3 The variation between the inlet and outlet openings for a steady state flow
Therefore, if the smoke layer is allowed to descend up to 6.5 m, above the first floor windows, the equilibrium in
the compartment could be reached for an outlet area of Aout = 27, 20 m2. In this case, the mass flow rate into the
atrium would be equal to the mass flow rate out and to the mass plume rate, each of approximately 29.5 kg/s.
5
3.2.3 Lowering the smoke layer height and providing smoke barriers at the second floor balcony
If the natural ventilation represents the preferred solution and given that a fire occurrence is an
accidental phenomenon, smoke screens can be provided along the second floor border towards the atrium space
or the balconies can be closed with glass windows. This solution would allow the smoke layer to drop up to 6.5
m and would create the conditions for a steady smoke layer contained above the first floor windows.
3.2.4 Limiting and controlling the fuel load inside the atrium
For this particular case, lowering the fire size five times decreases the plume mass flow rate by 40%,
but it will still require an additional smoke extraction strategy. Therefore, this preventive method can be used in
conjunction with an active control system. Moreover, limiting the fuel load could also decrease the cost
associated with high power fans because the fan capacity is proportional with the fire size.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Subsequent changes in the original design of a building affects more or less all the systems
implemented into the building by the original design. This study has shown how a slight decrease in the inlet
area, would require a great increase of the outlet area for a feasible natural ventilation strategy.
REFERENCES
[1] Milke, J. (2016). Smoke control by mechanical exhaust or natural venting, Chapter 51, SFPE Handbook
of Fire Engineering, Fifth Edition, Springer.
[2] Vassart, O. (2008). Dissemination of structural fire safety engineering knowledge (DIFISEK), Part 1:
Thermal and mechanical actions, WP1, Final Report EUR 23332 EN, ISBN 978-92-79-08354-9.
[3] NBN S21-208-2. (2010). Fire protection in buildings – Design and calculation of smoke and heat
extraction installations – Part 2: Covered car parking buildings, ICS: 13.220.01: 13.220.20, Ontwerp.
[4] Karlsson, B., Quintiere, J. (2000), Enclosure Fire Dynamics, CRC Press, Boca Raton London, New York,
Washington DC.
[5] EN 12101-2:2003. Smoke and heat control systems-Part 2: Specification for Natural smoke and heat
exhaust ventilators.
[6] Zukovski, E.E. (1995). Properties of fire plume. Combustion Fundamentals of fire, Cox,G.,Ed.,Academic
Press, London.