Study on the Performance of a Proposed Fire Safe Elevator System used for Evacuation in Supertall Buildings

• Main Authors: Cai Na, Shen Shifei
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences 2016-01-01
• Series: MATEC Web of Conferences
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/20168201015

Long evacuation time is a key fire safety concern when a supertall building is on fire. The elevator system can be an effective alternative. The performance of a design of fire safe elevator system combining the refuge place with fire safe elevator is studied. An example building based on this proposed design is considered. Smoke spread to the system is studied by the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). Different arrangements of smoke extraction with pressurization systems are evaluated by analysing the smoke dispersion and pressure distributions in this fire safe elevator system. Numerical results were compared with that by theoretical equations. The results show that a smoke extraction system with a four-floor approach pressurization system can be an efficient method for smoke control in elevator system for supertall buildings.