Numerical Analysis on the Effect of Thermal Insulation of Closure on Fire Smoke Spread Rate in Building's Corridor

Abstract

The corridor is an important way of evacuation and rescue in building fire. The fire smoke flow prediction software developed successfully was applied to simulate a building with a 28.8 meters long corridor to investigate the effect of the different thermal insulation on fire smoke spread rate. Two representative thermal insulation, external insulation and internal insulation were compared. In 3600s fire time, air temperature in the corridor of external insulation is much lower than that of internal insulation. The air temperature gap gets narrowed between the two insulation methods in the corridor with the prolongation of fire time. Temperature difference increases as the distance increase from the fire ignition place. The corridor gets unsafe of internal insulation in 7 minute since fire ignition, while about half the length of the corridor stay secure of external insulation in 10 minutes since fire ignition. That implies more available safe egress time can be gained with external insulation than internal insulation. Smoke spread rate was numerically compared based on the air temperature variation. Smoke spread rate of internal insulation is much higher than that of external insulation and the corresponding ratio is 1.732:1.