Experimental Investigation on Effect of Smoke Management System in a High-large Atrium

Abstract

In an atrium measured 120 m by 180 m by 36.5 m high, fire tests were conducted under “natural filling” and “mechanical exhaust” conditions by hot smoke test method. The fire size was 8 MW released by an ethanol pool of 3.6 m in diameter. The distribution of vertical temperature profiles above the fire source and the gas layer temperatures were measured. From these measurements, it was shown that the fans successfully exhausted hot smoke to control descending of hot smoke layer and temperature rising rate. The hot smoke layer can be maintained at about 30 m which was almost 2 times of hot layer height in “natural filling” condition. The temperature risings in both conditions were too low to cause thermal damage to the structure, only 18.6 K and 12 K. The centerline temperature above the fire source and the height of hot smoke layer were calculated using the plume models. The calculated results agreed well with the conclusions obtained from the experiment results.