Applied Zone Model to Evaluate the Smoke Management in an Underground Structure

Abstract

In Taiwan, since underground structures are more functional and complicated than usual buildings, for example, mass rapid transportation centers and underground shopping streets, performance-based designs are always adopted in allowing architects greater design freedom without any reduction in levels of fire safety of underground structures. Consequently, the function and efficiency of the smoke control systems in a public-use underground structure are becoming one of the important subjects for fire safety design engineers. This paper used a zone model as well as simplified mathematical models, which are commonly employed by fire safety engineering designers to investigate the smoke temperature and accompanying effect in an underground structure with a long corridor. Also, an evacuation assessment and escape time calculation were evaluated in this paper to address the strong relationship between evacuation and smoke control design. Further, experimental data collected from a full-scale underground corridor in Japan was used to verify the results from the model predictions.