Smoke and heat control for fires in large car parks: Lessons learnt from research?

Abstract

This paper focuses on car park fire safety, more particularly on fire and smoke (and heat) dynamics. The first part deals with the choice of design fire, based on recent full-scale car fire experiments with modern cars and different set-ups. Different aspects of smoke and heat control (SHC) systems are then discussed from the perspective of smoke (and heat) dynamics. The focus is mainly on the effect of horizontal mechanical ventilation, a popular technique, on the smoke and heat, generated by the fire source. Some fundamental differences from (longitudinal) mechanical ventilation in tunnels are described. Possible effects of water (sprinklers, water mist or from a fire brigade intervention), as well as some possible routes for further research, are briefly commented.

Smoke control in case of fire in a large car park: CFD simulations of full-scale configurations

“…The choice of design fire for use in standards for design of SHC systems in car parks constitutes an interesting study on itself. The reader is referred to [4] for a discussion on this topic, based on recent full-scale tests and statistics from car park fire hazards.…”

Experimental study of the effectiveness of a water system in blocking fire-induced smoke and heat in reduced-scale tunnel tests

“…Scaling up from the small-scale experiments, a HRR of 16kW in the reduced-scale tunnel then corresponds to 5MW, which roughly corresponds to the HRR of a single burning car (Merci and Shipp, 2013). The ventilation velocity (0.8 m /s) corresponds to 2.5 m/s, which is in the order of magnitude of the critical ventilation velocity for the configuration considered (Tilley et al, 2011).…”

The Simulation of Fires in Underground Parking Floors by Fire Dynamic Simulator

“…The plume in the parking space was very disorderly at 15 min, and the fire behavior was expanded, making rescue and escape difficult. Merci and Shipp (5) discussed the effect of smoke and temperature on an underground parking lot, smoke extraction by mechanical ventilation, and the dynamics of smoke and heat. The condition of spray sprinklers was input into the probable result, and the probabilities were studied.…”