Low and medium power full-scale atrium fire tests and numerical validation of FDS

Abstract

The inclusion of atria within modern large buildings is relative recent. These structures are important architectonical features since the 60’s. Atria are a source of discussion within the fire science community. They introduce complex designs and non conventional architectonical elements that can lead to fire environments diverging from those in current codes. Because of this, the current trend in fire safety in atria is towards performance based design. At this point, it is still necessary to improve and validate the existing numerical models. For this aim, some tests were carried out at the Murcia Fire Facility. These consist of 19 full-scale fire tests that provide with new experimental data of atrium fires. The fire size, the smoke extraction rate and make-up openings size and location were varied. At the present paper, a set of results from some of these experiments in a 20 m cubic facility are reported and discussed. Additionally, comparisons with the predicted results from Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) v.4 are also presented. FDS has turned out to be capable to predict the transient fire-induced conditions inside the facility accurately, above all at the upper parts. The predicted smoke layer descent has been also compared with the experimental one with good agreement.