Smart Smoke Control as an Efficient Solution for Smoke Ventilation in Converted Cellars of Historic Buildings
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Smart Smoke Control as an Efficient Solution for Smoke Ventilation in Converted Cellars of Historic Buildings Wojciech We˛grzyn´ski *, Grzegorz Krajewski and Grzegorz Kimbar, Fire Research Department, Instytut Techniki Budowlanej, Warsaw, Poland Received: 17 March 2020/Accepted: 4 September 2020
Abstract. The paper is focused on the topic of smoke control in a confined, underground cellar area of a historical building, that is undergoing conversion to a restaurant. Similar venues were host to some of the most devastating fires in history. We have investigated the performance of a novel solution, ‘‘smart smoke control (SSC)’’, and compared its performance with ‘‘traditional’’ smoke venting solution. The investigation was based on CFD simulations performed in a commercial code ANSYS Fluent, modified with user-defined functions to include for the steering algorithm of the SSC. The simulation results for a traditional system were unsatisfactory, while the SSC removing substantially more smoke (approx. 50% more) has provided tenable conditions over the whole course of the analysis. The results indicate that smoke control solutions based on the adaptive performance of the smoke exhaust fan, based on the conditions within the protected premise, can be favourable for compartments with the limited size of the smoke reservoir or limited space available for ducts. These findings are also true for existing buildings, where it may be advantageous to replace the existing smoke control solution with SSC. Future investigations should include full-scale experiments, and improvements in the simple algorithms used so far. Keywords: Fire, Smoke control, Ventilation, Smart fire systems, Historical buildings
1. Introduction 1.1. Challenges in Fire Safety of Cellars Converted to Utilities Refurbishment and conversion of historic buildings is a popular trend in the architecture. Old town buildings are favourably located in city centres, which promotes the change of building occupation from residential and storage to hotels, tourism and services. The cost of land and lack of available plots for new development promote the use of every part of the historic buildings—including ones that were located underground and primarily used for storage (in Poland primarily for coal and wood storage). The new occupation of the underground venues after conversion can include restaurants, pubs and music clubs. This is a radical * Correspondence should be addressed to: Wojciech We˛grzyn´ski, E-mail: [email protected]
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Fire Technology 2020 change in the use of a premise—from a remote area without constant human presence into a crowded area with hundreds of occupants. Enclosed nightclub type venues were house to some of the biggest fire disasters, including The Cocoanut Grove Nightclub fire in Boston (1942, 492 deaths) [1], The Station Nightclub fire in Warwick (2003, 100 deaths) [2] or KISS Nightclub fire in Santa Maria (2013, 242 deaths) [3]. Limited ventilation, lack of windows, complex compartmentation and possibly non-conforming users are key factors influe
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