Influence of vent positions on smoke clearance from a room

Abstract

Results of solutions to the equations governing the clearance of smoke in laminar and in turbulent flow from a single rectilinear room are presented fof five different vent arrangements. These results show that the average smoke concentration in the room decreases in an approximately exponential manner with time at a rate that depdends much more on room geometry (vent positions in the present case) than on whether the flow is laminar or turbulent. The benefit of this observation is that, provided the clearance air jet is disrupted by impingement on a solid surface within the room, the analysis of smoke movement can for many practical purposes be limited to consideration of laminar flow only. An exceptional case is when the jet is allowed to take a straight line path between the inlet and outlet vents. Here in the absence of the large scale eddies caused by jet impingement, the smaller scale eddies of turbulent flow become relatively important as a mixing mechanism and give higher clearance rates than in laminar flow. Even so, this type of geometry is best avoided. The appearance of the jet is shown in a graphic presentation of the numerical results for laminar flow.