CH-99-08-4 -- An Engineering Approach to Tenability Systems for Atrium Smoke Management ✓ Most Recent

This paper addresses atria smoke management systems where it is intended that occupants will be in contact with smoke. While this approach is unusual, it is recognized by several authoritative publications on atrium smoke management. A tenability analysis for an atrium smoke management system needs to account for the effects of (1) exposure to toxic gases, (2) exposure to elevated temperatures, and (3) smoke obscuration. Much of this paper consists of adapting and presenting well-established tenability methods for application to smoke management. However, this paper is unique in that new material is presented concerning (1) a method to evaluate the relative aspects of tenability of smoke in the absence of a smoke transport analysis, (2) a generic fuel approach to atrium tenability analysis, and (3) a method of comparing the tenability of smoke from different fuels on the same system design. It is shown that for an appropriate generic fuel, the tenability analysis can be significantly simplified.

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