Turbulent smoke flow in evacuation staircases during a high-rise residential building fire

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to study the behavior of smoke flow in a typical high-rise residential building fire in six common smoke control systems.

Design/methodology/approach

The pressure, temperature and CO₂ concentration were used to trace the motion of turbulent smoke flow through CFD.

Findings

It is found that the hot smoke could rise up and spread into the indoor space on the upper floors through the staircase. When the pressure in the evacuation staircase is higher, it would be more difficult for the smoke to enter the staircase and transport vertically. On the other hand, the smoke would soon transport to the indoor space on the upper floors horizontally. During this process, the smoke shows a more disorder horizontal transport under the sole effect of thermal buoyancy than the co-existence of thermal buoyancy and the air inlet.

Research limitations/implications

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may need to be tested by further experiments.

Practical implications

The paper includes implications for the design of smoke control systems and evacuation in a building fire.

Originality/value

This paper fulfils an identified need to study the behavior of smoke in a fire and optimize the design of smoke control systems.

Citation

Chen, Y., Zhou, X., Zhang, T., Hu, Y. and Yang, L. (2015), "Turbulent smoke flow in evacuation staircases during a high-rise residential building fire", International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 534-549. https://doi.org/10.1108/HFF-11-2013-0329