Experimental and Numerical Study on the Plume Rising in Stairwell of Buildings

Abstract

In recent years, it has been observed that when a fire occurs in a multi-use facility, a toxic fire smoke rapidly rises through the vertical shaft and spreads due to the chimney effect and hot buoyancy. Generally, the fire smoke spreads rapidly through a number of evacuation passages installed for safe evacuation, which adversely affects an emergency situation. Due to the lack of this knowledge among the occupants, the majority of the occupants are evacuated using the stairwells, getting suffocated by poisonous smoke and suffering serious injuries. The present study considered the fire smoke spreading vertically through the stairwell. For this purpose, the power of the heat source and the area of the ventilation windows connected to the stairwell were modified, and the movement and diffusion of the hot plume rising vertically in the stairwell were observed. For the experiment, a 1/20 scaled-down stairwell model was employed, and the temperature ‘T’ and the vertical velocity ‘w’ of the hot plume rising inside the stairwell were measured using a 60 W-180 W heat source power. Numerical analysis was performed using FDS under similar conditions, and the results were compared with the experimental results.