Investigation on mechanical exhaust of cabin fire in large-space building

A calculation model for mechanical exhaust rate in large-space building in the case of cabin fire is proposed through theoretical analysis. Full-scale hot smoke tests are then performed to study the cabin fire spreading to large-space building at different air change rates (ACH). The result indicates that under the standard prescribed ACH, the effective air heights in the large spaces are respectively 6, 4 and 2 m in the case of cabin fires of 0.34, 0.67 and 1 MW. Numerical experiment has been conducted using self-developing two-zone model. The smoke control efficiency is compared by varying the large space’s air change rate in the case of cabin fires ranging from 0.25 to 4 MW. The calculation results show that the air change rates are respectively 3, 6, 10 and 10 ACH when the smoke layer is kept above 5 m, indicating that the centralized exhaust rates far exceed the standard prescribed value. To address this problem, a set of subsidiary distributed mechanical exhaust installing in the cabin with high fire loads is proposed. The simulation shows that both from the safety and economy point of view, the adoption of subsidiary distributed cabin exhaust design may effectively reduce the demand of designed air change rate for large-space building. Supported partially by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 50674079 and 50579100)