• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.28-36
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• 2017

In this work, the effects of fire curtain and forced smoke ventilation on smoke spread to auditorium in the stage fire of theater were investigated using the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). For the stage of 31 m (Width)${\times}$34 m (Depth)${\times}$32 m (Height) in dimension, the fast growth fire condition with 10 MW of heat release rate was applied. The forced smoke ventilation was set based on the National Fire Safety Code (NFSC) and previous research. The gap distances between the fire curtain and proscenium wall was established to be 0 m and 0.5 m. When the fire curtain was attached completely to the proscenium wall without any gap, no smoke spread from the stage to the auditorium occurred, independent of forced smoke ventilation. When the gap distance between the fire curtain and proscenium wall was 0.5 m, the smoke layer in the stage descended to the lower height from the bottom than the case without the fire curtain, which was because the smoke spread to auditorium was impeded by the fire curtain. Under the same fire curtain condition, the case with the forced smoke ventilation led to decreasing the mass flow rate of outflow through the gap between the fire curtain and proscenium wall, as compared to the case without the forced smoke ventilation. Based on this study, it was confirmed that the fire curtain and forced smoke ventilation were the effective tools to hold down the smoke spread to the auditorium in the stage fire of theater.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.69-75
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• 2019

In this study, the combustibility of five types of plastic plates, fiber reinforced plastic (FRP), polystyrene (PS), polycarbonate (PC), polypropylene (PP), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), were tested using a cone calorimeter (ISO 5660). The PVC plate showed a $44.65kW/m^2$ lower peak heat release rate (HRR) and a $30.97kW/m^2$ lower maximum average rate of heat emission than the other four types of plastics, whereas the PS plate showed a $773.44kW/m^2$ higher peak HRR and $399.14kW/m^2$ higher maximum average rate of heat emission. The PC plate and PS plate showed the highest HRR by a maximum of 3.88 times in $CO_{mean}$ yields, while the PS pate and PP plate showed the highest HRR by a maximum 4.88 times in $CO_{2mean}$ yields. In addition, the smoke performance index (SPI) of the PS plate decreased by 74.81%~95.99%; the smoke growth index (SGI) increased to 76%~300%; the smoke intensity (SI) also increased to 917.73% ~ 9607.57%, and the danger of smoke increased. The PS plate was found to have the highest risk of life damage due to smoke on the thermal and smoke sides.