High-rise Building Fire Research Articles

A fire risk pre-warning framework for high-rise buildings based on unascertained method

The growing global interest in preventing and controlling fires in high-rise buildings reflects the increasing significance of this issue today. This research aims to establish an early warning framework for fire risk in high-rise buildings. Firstly, considering the importance of a scientific indicator system for the application of the model, this study combines the event analysis method with the building design fire code to identify 11 key risk factors that have a far-reaching impact on the prevention of fires in high-rise buildings. Based on identifying the risk factors, a high-rise building fire risk warning tree is also established, which scientifically solves the problem of the indicator system of the warning object. Subsequently, in response to the various complex issues arising from the uncertainty of fire occurrence in high-rise buildings, this study adopts the unascertained method to model the fire risk of high-rise buildings for early warning. In addition, the developed methodology was empirically validated through case studies and analyses of empirical data on fire risks in nine representative high-rise buildings. The results of the unascertained method were also compared with the results of the K-means method, from which it was concluded that the unascertained method can predict building fires more accurately. The research results provide a reliable decision support system for fire disaster prevention and control in high-rise buildings.

A transient network model for cross-regional layered fire smoke diffusion in high-rise buildings

At present, research on smoke diffusion in high-rise building fires mainly focuses on the single smoke layer propagation within a limited area, with less attention paid to the smoke propagation under the joint action of the fire floor and the vertical shaft area. Moreover, research on fire spread often focuses on the composition of combustible materials and building structures, neglecting natural ventilation. To address the above issues, we propose a transient network model for layered smoke diffusion (CLDTN) based on multi-region integration and complex control parameters. This model considers the smoke stratification mode of the fire floor affected by the fire source and ventilation, as well as the vertical stratification mode of the shaft affected by the stack effect, achieving cross-regional smoke stratification and diffusion modeling through smoke coupling. Then, a time-dependent transient network model is used to analyze furniture materials and open ventilation conditions of doors and windows, and a differential equation for energy conservation in multiple scene layers is constructed to analyze the dynamic behavior of smoke propagation.The comparative experiment of smoke propagation between CLDTN and the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) shows that CLDTN is more efficient in computation time and the model is more accurate.

Optimizing phased-evacuation strategy for high-rise buildings in fire

Evacuation in high-rise buildings is a critical safety issue due to multiple floors and high occupant density. Phased evacuation strategies can mitigate this challenge. This research focuses on developing optimal phased evacuation strategies to enhance occupant safety during high-rise building fires. The study demonstrates these strategies in a 25-story building, housing 2400 individuals, across various scenarios. To simulate fire and smoke development, a two-zone model is employed to analyze behavior within the building. Pedestrian evacuation scenarios are simulated using Pathfinder and a mathematical model, providing insights into individual movements and congestion during evacuation to analyze different phased evacuation strategies. Findings underscore the importance of smoke flow and pedestrian motion in optimizing phased evacuation strategies. The modeling results show that implementing the optimal strategy can lead to a 65 % reduction in staircase congestion time. This study provides a quantitative analysis of high-rise building fires, considering dynamic fire and evacuation evolution. It emphasizes the importance of phased evacuation strategies and advocates for their real-life application. This research enhances the understanding of high-rise building evacuations to improve safety measures and provides a robust framework for optimizing evacuation strategies by integrating fire modeling. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of phased evacuation and paves the way for future applications to ensure occupant safety in fire emergencies.

Common incidents and prevention of urban water supply pipeline accidents

With rapid urbanization, urban water supply pipeline accidents have become increasingly prevalent. Understanding their common occurrences and prevention strategies is crucial for ensuring water safety. This study aims to explore the underlying causes of such incidents, ranging from ageing infrastructure to design flaws and construction issues. By analyzing existing preventive measures and international best practices, this research seeks to contribute to the development of effective strategies for mitigating urban water supply pipeline accidents. This thesis focuses on urban water supply pipeline accidents, addressing both common incidents and preventive measures. It begins by highlighting the unique challenges of fires in high-rise buildings, including their rapid spread and the difficulties in evacuating occupants. The paper then emphasizes the importance of innovative fire-resistant materials, classifying them into various types such as phenolic, sprayed, calcium silicate, and lightweight composite materials. Each type is explored in detail, discussing their properties and potential applications. Finally, the paper outlines the practical use of these materials in fire engineering, emphasizing their role in enhancing the safety and resilience of urban infrastructure. Overall, this thesis contributes valuable insights to understanding and mitigating the risks associated with urban water supply pipeline accidents, promoting disaster prevention and management efforts.

The Impact of Air-Tightness on Smoke Transport During High-Rise Building Fires Under Low-Temperature Conditions

The Impact of Air-Tightness on Smoke Transport During High-Rise Building Fires Under Low-Temperature Conditions

DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF EMERGENCY FIRE RESCUE MACHINE

Building fires pose a serious risk to people, property and the environment. Numerous factors, such as human mistakes, electrical issues, heating systems, combustible items, might cause fire accidents. The effects of fire can be disastrous, resulting in accidents, fatalities, and significant building damage. Compared to fires in low-rise structures, high-rise building fire incidents pose numerous difficulties and a greater risk. High-rise building's vertical structures, greater resident capacity, and intricate infrastructure make fire fighters and evacuating residents more difficult to escape. It is essential to comprehend the causes, effects, and preventive strategies unique to high-rise fires in order to ensure occupant safety and reduce property damage. The disturbingly high rate of fire events, which are frequently brought on by inadequate fire prevention measures and damaged infrastructure, represent a serious threat to people's lives, their property, and the health of the economy. India can reduce the dangers connected with fire incidents in high-rise structures and guarantee the safety and well-being of its residents in the urban environment by giving priorityto the implementation of appropriate rescue systems. So in this project we are going to develop such machine which can help humans to get escape in the case of emergency situation in high rise building.

Dynamic design of hazardous chemical storage in high-rise R&D building based on numerical simulation

With the increasing demand for research on hazardous chemicals in high-rise research and development (R&D) buildings, the use of a large number of flammable chemicals increases the fire risk significantly. Therefore, the research on the storage of hazardous chemicals in high-rise R&D buildings becomes more and more important. This paper presents a maximum dynamic design method for hazardous chemical storage. A set of fire risk indicators has been established in the research, including temperature, carbon monoxide concentration, and visibility. The representative hazardous chemicals are selected through the investigation of the distribution and quantity of hazardous chemicals. Through numerical simulation of high-rise building fire with different stocks of dangerous chemicals and evacuation simulation of different fire floors, the time when the risk factors of fire occurrence reach the critical threshold of human body (ASET) and the necessary time for human evacuation (RSET) are obtained. By adjusting the amount of hazardous chemicals stored, the time to reach the hazardous critical threshold (RSET) and the time to evacuate (ASET) are changed accordingly. When RSET < ASET, the storage capacity of hazardous chemicals in the high-rise R&D building meets the target requirements. In the case study, ethanol was selected as the representative substance, and numerical simulation and example calculation were carried out on a 16-story R&D building. The amount of ethanol stored on each floor was calculated. Among them, the eighth layer has the largest ethanol storage capacity (1.81 L/m2) and the ninth layer has the smallest ethanol storage capacity (0.89 L/m2).

Empirical assessment of fire safety in high-rise residential buildings in Vietnam and residents’ knowledge and awareness regarding fire safety

With increasing population, the demand for high-rise residential buildings has been increasing. The challenges posed by firefighting and evacuation during fires in high-rise buildings have attracted considerable attention. This study explores the fire safety facilities and management in high-rise residential buildings in Vietnam and the knowledge and awareness of residents regarding fire safety. These aspects were assessed using a questionnaire answered by residents of 32 high-rise buildings in Vietnam. The answers reveal that most residents had basic knowledge of fire safety in high-rise buildings, but their preparedness of a fire event was inadequate. It is recommended that the implementation of safety regulations and measures for reducing the risk of fires in buildings be enforced. Besides analyzing descriptive statistics, a multiple regression analysis was conducted to explore the key factors influencing the level of awareness and knowledge of fire safety among the residents of high-rise buildings. The results indicate that education level, gender, living floor, and participation in fire drills are the key factors influencing residents' levels of knowledge and awareness. The survey results serve as supportive reference for the relevant stakeholders for reducing the risk of fires and the resulting losses. Furthermore, this study offers valuable insights for future studies on high-rise residential buildings in Vietnam at larger scales.

AHP to Operate Drones with Fire Extinguishing Grenades during High-rise Fires

The study utilized AHP analysis to enhance the application of fire extinguishing agents in high-rise building fires. Experts identified institutional and policy improvements as the foremost priority, emphasizing the need for legal safeguards for private interests in similar situations. Alongside this, there was a strong emphasis on the significance of improving the performance of fire extinguishing agents. This research holds particular importance in guiding policy decisions, serving as foundational data for potential advancements in fire response strategies. Notably, experts suggest a focus on the deployment of fire extinguishing agent-loaded drones, especially in scenarios where access is challenging, such as high-rise buildings. The prioritization of institutional and policy improvements underscores the necessity for robust regulatory frameworks. Ultimately, the study contributes essential insights for shaping policies and technological enhancements to address high-rise building fires effectively.

Regional High-Rise Building Fire Risk Assessment Based on the Spatial Markov Chain Model and an Indicator System

High-rise buildings (HRBs) are prone to high fire hazards due to their high occupant density, limited evacuation routes, and high fire load. The indicator system method, as a systematic evaluation method, is widely applied to assess HRB fire risk. However, the method is subjective because the determination of the indicator weights mainly relies on expert experience. In order to reduce the subjectivity of the indicator system method in assessing the fire risk of HRBs, this study proposes a new assessment method by combining the spatial Markov chain model and the indicator system method. In this new method, fire occurrence probability is calculated by the spatial Markov chain model using historical HRB fire accident data. An indicator system is built to characterize the fire consequence by the structure entropy weight method. Subsequently, HRBs in Beijing are used as a case to illustrate the practicality of this approach. Firstly, the spatial Markov chain model is trained and validated using the chi-square goodness-of-fit test based on fire accident data from 2018 to 2023 in Beijing. It was found that the best performance was achieved with the monthly period and the four-state. Then, the distribution of regional fire occurrence probability in April was predicted based on fire accident data in March 2023 in Beijing. It showed that areas with higher fire occurrence probability are mainly located in the central region, especially in the I District. Then, the indicator system was used to evaluate the HRB fire consequence in the I District. The assessment results showed that the areas with more severe fire consequences are mainly located in the II and IV Districts, due to the poor performance of the fire system or the absence of fire protection systems. Coupling the fire occurrence probability and its consequences shows that HRBs with higher fire risk are mainly located in area II and should be carefully supervised for fire management. This developed method can provide some insights into the fire safety management of HRBs and the layout of the fire stations.

Agent-based modeling of high-rise building fires reveals self-rescue behaviors and better fire protection designs

It is always challenging to seek external rescue assistance in high-rise building fires. Therefore, it is critical for individuals to master survival skills. For crowd dynamics modeling, previous research focused on numerical simulations and building designs with little attention to the self-rescue mechanism. It is critical to understanding crowd evacuations and better response strategies. We modeled the Grenfell Tower (a high-rise building with a complicated structure) case in 2017. Based on the percolation and social force models, we build an agent-based model to simulate individual behaviors inside. We obtain the optimal solution and robust paralleled outcomes under all counterfactual situations based on precisely matching tangible case outcomes (fire duration, deaths, and injuries). For individuals, mastering self-rescue skills is better at reducing social losses (deaths & injuries). In terms of high-rise buildings design, the central alarm system is also useful to reduce them. Besides, the crowd evacuation guided by the social force model also reduces deaths & injuries. This work provides insight into better high-rise building design and practical response strategies for societies. The central alarm system and fire-proof materials should be used in high-rise buildings. The residents should have routine training in social force-based evacuations and survival (self-rescue) skills to better the evacuation process and outcome under natural disasters and social emergencies.

The Effect of Plan Corner Shapes on the Spread Speed of Fire in High-Rise Buildings

The Effect of Plan Corner Shapes on the Spread Speed of Fire in High-Rise Buildings

Research on Autonomous and Collaborative Deployment of Massive Mobile Base Stations in High-Rise Building Fire Field.

High-rise building fires pose a serious threat to the lives and property safety of people. The lack of reliable and accurate positioning means is one of the main difficulties faced by rescuers. In the absence of prior knowledge of the high-rise building fire environment, the coverage deployment of mobile base stations is a challenging problem that has not received much attention in the literature. This paper studies the problem of the autonomous optimal deployment of base stations in high-rise building fire environments based on a UAV group. A novel problem formulation is proposed that solves the non-line-of-sight (NLOS) positioning problem in complex and unknown environments. The purpose of this paper is to realize the coverage and deployment of mobile base stations in complex and unknown fire environments. The NLOS positioning problem in the fire field environment is turned into the line-of-sight (LOS) positioning problem through the optimization algorithm. And there are more than three LOS base stations nearby at any point in the fire field. A control law which is formulated in a mathematically precise problem statement is developed that guarantees to meet mobile base stations' deployment goals and to avoid collision. Finally, the positioning accuracy of our method and that of the common method were compared under many different cases. The simulation result showed that the positioning error of a simulated firefighter in the fire field environment was improved from more than 10 m (the positioning error of the traditional method) to less than 1 m.

A Real-Time Pre-Response Experiment System for High-Rise Building Fires Based on the Internet of Things

The primary objective of the current fire protection system in high-rise buildings is to extinguish fires in close proximity to the detectors. However, in the event of rapidly spreading fires, it is more effective to limit the transmission of fire and smoke. This study aims to develop an IoT-based real-time pre-response system for high-rise building fires that is capable of limiting the spread of fire and smoke. The proposed system collects fire data from sensors and transmits them to a cloud computer for real-time analysis. Based on the analysis results, the cloud computer controls the actions of alarm devices, ventilation equipment, and fine water mist nozzles. The system can dynamically adjust the entire system’s behavior in real time by adopting pre-response measures to extinguish fires and limit the spread of fires and smoke. The system was tested on a simulation platform similar to actual high-rise buildings to evaluate its impact on fires and smoke. The results demonstrate the system’s effectiveness in extinguishing fires and suppressing the spread of fires and smoke.

A Prediction Model for Smoke Spread Path in High Rise Building Fires Based on Graph Theory

To satisfy the demand for rapid prediction of smoke transmission paths in high-rise building fires, a graph-based model was developed. The model represents a high-rise building as a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) grid model and employs computer simulation to determine the smoke transmission path and generate prediction results. The results were compared with those from similar simulations and were found to be consistent, indicating the feasibility and objective nature of the prediction results. Compared to other methods, this model has a shorter modeling time and can quickly provide prediction results. Furthermore, it can be applied to buildings of any structure, thus serving as a reference for smoke control design in high-rise building fire protection systems, particularly in cases involving complex internal structures.

Information sharing and support among residents in response to fire incidents in high-rise residential buildings

Understanding how people respond in the first moments of fire incidents is crucial for emergency planning and preparedness, and disasters such as the Grenfell Tower fire show that much work is needed to ensure safety for residents of high-rise residential buildings. This research applied the social identity approach to emergencies to explore how group dynamics impact resident behaviour in high-rise building fire incidents. We conducted 16 semi-structured focus group interviews with 40 residents of UK high-rise buildings to explore how they had responded or would respond to a fire in their building. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we found that group processes underpinned who residents looked to for information about the fire and whose views were trusted when deciding response. Collective self-organisation among residents instead of immediately following the safety guidance for the building was a recurring theme across the focus groups. Most residents reported that they would provide and expect help from other residents to evacuate, including relying on others to inform them if evacuation was needed. However, residents who felt there was little social connection among the residents anticipated they would not receive help in the event of a fire, and immediate threat to self also limited the help some felt they were able to provide. We find support for the social identity approach to emergency response in a novel context of high-rise residential buildings and foreground the importance of group processes for fire safety guidance.

A Probabilistic Model for Fire Temperature Rise in High-Rise Residential Buildings under the Action of Uncertain Factors

Due to the randomness of interior combustibles, wall thermal inertia, and opening factor, the fire temperature rise in high-rise residential buildings is uncertain. This study investigated 38 urban high-rise residential buildings, created the probability density functions of fire load density, opening factor, and wall thermal inertia, and constructed random fire scenarios for urban high-rise residential buildings. On this basis, relying on the Latin Hypercube Sampling method, this study further explored the probabilistic model for fire temperature rise in urban high-rise residential buildings under the action of uncertain factors, generated the possible temperature rise curves of fires in urban high-rise residential buildings and their probability distribution, and established the most representative temperature rise curve.

Beyond imaging: drones for physical applications

PurposeThis paper aims to illustrate the growing role of drones in applications involving physical tasks.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a short introduction, this first provides a brief introduction to drone technology. It then describes and discusses products and applications involving physical tasks in agricultural and forestry, maritime rescue, firefighting and product delivery. Finally, brief conclusions are drawn.FindingsExcluding military applications, drones were initially used primarily for image acquisition. Numerous different designs have since been developed with greatly varying wing configurations, payloads, flight duration, power sources and other features which are increasingly being used to conduct physical tasks. In the applications considered here drones are applying agrochemicals and dispersing crop and tree seeds; saving lives by deploying lifeboats and buoyancy aids; extinguishing fires in high-rise buildings and forests; and delivering groceries, food, mail, medicines and humanitarian aid, often in and to remote locations.Originality/valueThis study provides a detailed insight into selection of applications in which drones conduct physical tasks.

Full-Scale Experimental Study on the Integrity of Tempered Glass Protected by Different Sprinkler Systems in High-Rise Building Fire

Full-Scale Experimental Study on the Integrity of Tempered Glass Protected by Different Sprinkler Systems in High-Rise Building Fire

The Effect of Configuration form on the Spread Speed of Fire in High-Rise Buildings

The Effect of Configuration form on the Spread Speed of Fire in High-Rise Buildings