Study of Smoke Behavior in a Compartment with Sprinkler System Activation - Measurement and Analysis of Fire Plumes -

Abstract

Sprinkler systems (hereinafter, SP systems) are one of the important fire safety measures with respect to building fire safety. However, with the exception of the relaxation of the fire compartment, the current architectural design does not take into significant consideration the effects of SP systems. If the effects of SP systems could be applied in architectural design, it would allow greater flexibility in the design and would improve the current fire safety measures. Activating an SP system induces air flow that brings smoke accumulated in the upper ceiling area down to the lower area (hereinafter, downward air flow).[1] On the other hand, the downward air flow changes the air flow in the entire compartment, which may influence the entraining behavior of the fire plume. Current research commonly makes use of Zukoski’s and Heskestad's models in order to estimate the flow rate of the fire plume. However, the compartmental setting of these models is controlled and the influence of the ambient air flow that is changed by the water discharge is not taken into account. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of the water discharge on the fire plume by calculating the fire plume from the models of Zukoski and Heskestad and comparing it with the fire plume as obtained from an experiment involving an actual-size fire compartment.