A SIMULATION STUDY OF ATRIUM SMOKE CONTROL AND FLOW IN A LARGE SHOPPING COMPLEX

Abstract

This dissertation aims to study fire induced smoke movement in a large atrium of a local shopping complex through the use of a commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) package "Phoenics 3.1". Additionally, the results obtained were compared with the theoretical and empirical formulae and guidelines established by Building Research Establishments (BRE).The building measured 120m(L), 60m(W) and 30.1m(H). Three cases were simulated to study how well the smoke control system design cope with three different locations of fire occurrence. Each case was also studied at four different times after ignition, namely: 1 minute, 4 minutes, 10 minutes and 20 minutes.

The CFO results show that BRE guidelines are on the conservative side and there seems to be some leeway for improvement.