A Numerical Study on the Smoke Behavior by Solar Radiation through Ceiling Glass in Atrium Fires

This paper describes the smoke filling process of a fire field model based on a self-deve-loped SMEP (Smoke Movement Estimating Program) code to the simulation of fire induced flows in the two types of atrium space containing a ceiling heat flux. The SMEP using PISO algorithm solves conservation equations for mass, momentum, energy and species, together with those for the modified k-$\varepsilon$ turbulence model with buoyancy production term. Also it solves the radiation equation using the discrete ordinates method. Compressibility is assumed and the perfect gas law is used. Comparison of the calculated upper-layer average tempera-ture and smoke layer clear height with the zone models has shown reasonable agreement. The zone models used are the CFAST and the NBTC one-room. For atrium fires with ceiling glass the ceiling heat flux by solar heat causes a high smoke temperature near the ceiling. However, it has no effect on the smoke movement such as the smoke layer clear heights that are important in fire safety. In conclusion, the smoke layer clear heights that are important in evacuation activity except the early of a fire were not as sensitive as the smoke layer tem-perature to the nature of ceiling heat flux condition. Thus, a fire sensor in atrium with ceiling glass has to consider these phenomena.