CH-12-C014 -- Atrium Smoke Management Natural Venting Challenges ✓ Most Recent

Buildings with large open spaces such as an atrium require a smoke management system. Natural smoke venting is not common in North America but it is receiving more consideration in new building design to integrate with sustainable aspects that utilize natural ventilation and also for the reason that, if it can be shown to be reliable, it can save money. This paper discusses the effects of: wind; temperature of the fire smoke plume; and stack effect for natural smoke venting. It also presents CFD modeling illustrating these effects for a 4-story atrium and an 8-story atrium. The results show that natural smoke venting performs satisfactorily during calm wind conditions without stack effect and also during cold outdoor temperatures. With very hot outdoor temperatures reverse stack effect can cause temporary fumigation of smoke throughout a tall atrium. During frequently occurring windy conditions higher make-up air speeds can cause adverse mixing of smoke throughout an atrium since natural venting schemes have significant area of open inlets andoutlets.