Smoke control in buildings: An overview
conference paper
Smoke poses a major hazard to people in a building involved in fire, being directly responsible for the majority of all deaths in building fires. Whereas the fire itself generally spreads through the building at a relatively slow rate, smoke takes only minutes to fill the building, if no actions are taken. With respect to the damage to materials and building in case of fire the relative effect of smoke is smaller, but still significant.
Smoke is a mixture of hot combustion gases, incompletely burnt particles and air. The hazard associated with smoke can be divided in three aspects: visibility, toxicity and temperature.
The visibility through the smoke is the most important factor; if people cannot (easily) find escape routes to safe areas in a building, this leads to long periods of exposure to the toxic and hot smoke. The toxicity and temperature of the smoke are generally considered of secondary importance; if the escape routes to safe areas can be easily found (wel-lit exit signs etc.) and the walking distance is reasonably short, all residents can reach the safe areas through smoke (early stages of the fire). This is the reason why modern building regulations tend to concentrate on the quantity of smoke released by a product rather than the composition of the smoke
Smoke is a mixture of hot combustion gases, incompletely burnt particles and air. The hazard associated with smoke can be divided in three aspects: visibility, toxicity and temperature.
The visibility through the smoke is the most important factor; if people cannot (easily) find escape routes to safe areas in a building, this leads to long periods of exposure to the toxic and hot smoke. The toxicity and temperature of the smoke are generally considered of secondary importance; if the escape routes to safe areas can be easily found (wel-lit exit signs etc.) and the walking distance is reasonably short, all residents can reach the safe areas through smoke (early stages of the fire). This is the reason why modern building regulations tend to concentrate on the quantity of smoke released by a product rather than the composition of the smoke
TNO Identifier
329093
Source title
Seminar 'Passive Fire Protection', Jakarta, Indonesia, 8 October
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