Numerical Investigation of Smoke Extraction Methods in Large Storage Areas: Design Modifications

Abstract

The design of smoke extraction is very import part in any fire system design. Where an incorrect design of the smoke extraction strategy may lead to delay in the response of the fire extinguishing systems, which causes the high rate of loss of life and destruction of the building and its contents. This work, numerically investigates the effectiveness of a smoke exhaust strategy in a large storage area using a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) package named Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), which will be used in this work in order to simulate fires in the store, a fire will be designed at certain conditions to mimic the fire loads expected in the storage. Smoke movement from the origin of the fire, and smoke contamination in the store are simulated in order to obtain the optimal design conditions of smoke extraction strategy. The parameters that influence the smoke extraction in large storage, which will be studied in this work are: 1) temperature distributions inside the space with different scenarios of the fire onset, 2) air velocity according to different fire scenarios, and 3) distribution of fresh and exhaust air outlet. The results of these simulations are presented and discussed.