Stack effects in tall building fires: a case study of Taiwan old apartment fire.

Tainan, a city that prospered early in Taiwan, has a hot and humid atmosphere. Hence, the grilled doors in numerous old buildings for ventilation and lighting to conserve energy. This study analyzed a fire incident that occurred during the late night of March 17, 2019 in a 38-year-old dwelling, where three residents were severely covered with soot. The site investigation showed that eight staircases lead to the same basement, which apparently created a stack effect and a makeup air phenomenon. Numerical simulations have been performed in this study to reconstruct the fire scene, whose results were consistent with the actual fire scene. In particular, the results showed that some staircases in the fire were blackened by smoke, while others acted as makeup air inlets. The temperature at the households' doors on all floors of Staircase 2, which was closest to the fire, exceeded 60 °C after four minutes. Furthermore, two immediately feasible improvement strategies according to the control volume theory of fluid mechanics were proposed in this study. Firstly, changing the grilled doors in the basement to a closed flat door style could effectively prevent smoke from flowing up in the staircases. Secondly, residents may consider closing the windows of the stairs at night to improve fire safety. The results showed that the chimney effect can be significantly reduced. These improvements could be a reference for other old dwellings to enhance their fire safety.

Visualization of hot flows of tall space fires in model experiments with Schlieren Photography technique.

The natural smoke exhaust system for tall spaces is more advantageous than the mechanical type of exhaust. In Taiwan, the effectiveness of natural smoke exhaust systems is inspected only by checking the vent area size. However, the air flow field in a tall space is very complicated, both at ordinary times or during fires. This study used Schlieren Photography technique, on the principle that light rays are refracted when penetrating materials of different densities, to test and simulate the dynamic measurement of hot air in tall space model. A single-mirror Schlieren system, including an 838 mm (H) × 736 mm (W) square concave mirror, as well as the focal length of 3100 mm was adopted. The experimental process of six smokeless candles were used for 1/12.5 model experiment to record the dynamic distribution and accumulation of air flow in the abovementioned space. FDS software was used to simulate various fire scenarios. The different locations of openings in some cases were studied with the maximum temperature scales of 40 and 45 °C, separately. The simulation results and experimental images showed highly similar hot air flow patterns. Schlieren Photography was proved capable of recording and visualizing the dynamic flow of hot air immediately, directly and accurately.