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A Discussion on Tall Building Fire Safety in the Asia-Oceania Regions

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Fire Science and Technology 2015

Abstract

Many new tall buildings of height over 300 m have been constructed in the Asia-Oceania regions over the past decade. Fire safety provisions were determined by following the prescriptive codes developed years ago for traditional buildings up to 120 m tall. Performance-based approach was applied when these buildings failed to satisfy the prescriptive codes. With the occurrence of many big fires in recent years, people are beginning to seriously question whether current fire safety provisions are adequate in these tall buildings with new architectural design features. Very few comprehensive studies reported on the dynamics of room fires in tall buildings. In this connection, a number of scenarios are of particular importance in scrutinizing new fire safety problems arising from tall buildings. In the first place, wind action on tall residential buildings with open windows will supply adequate oxygen to burn large amounts of combustibles present. Secondly, a big fire with high heat release rate only gives short ‘available safe egress time’. However, high occupant loading in tall buildings needs long ‘required safe egress time’. This discrepancy in safe egress times would cause serious safety problems. Thirdly, special designs such as open kitchens in small flats of very tall buildings would raise new problems in fire safety provisions that have not been thoroughly considered.

This presentation will discuss the following general aspects of tall building fires:

  1. 1.

    Performance-based approach in determining fire safety provisions and problems resulting from using the approach adopted for traditional buildings

  2. 2.

    The effect of wind action on room fire at height

  3. 3.

    Residential building fire with an open kitchen and necessity of providing sprinkler system

  4. 4.

    Evacuation strategy with refuge floors, elevator and skybridge at height to reduce the egress time

  5. 5.

    The possibility of generation of internal fire whirl in a vertical shaft

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Abbreviations

\( {\overset{.}{Q}}_T \) :

Total heat release rate (in MW)

\( {\overset{.}{m}}_{air} \) :

Mass rate of air intake (in kgs−1)

\( {\overset{.}{Q}}_{vent} \) :

Maximum heat release rate (in MW)

Av :

Area of an opening (in m2)

Cd :

Discharge coefficient

F:

Evacuation flow capacity (in number of persons/s)

Fw :

Volumetric air flow rate prompted by wind (in m3s−1)

g:

Gravitational force (in ms−2)

Ho :

Reference height (in m)

Hv :

Height of an opening (in m)

n:

Dimensionless exponent

NT :

Number of persons

te :

Evacuation time (in s)

Vf :

Ventilation factor for an opening (in m5/2)

Vo :

Wind speed at reference height Ho (in ms−1)

Vw :

Wind speed at height z (in ms−1)

z:

Height (in m)

ΔCp :

Dimensionless pressure coefficient

ASET:

Available safe egress time

CFD:

Computational fluid dynamics

EPBFC:

Engineering performance-based fire code

FEA:

Fire engineering approach

FLD:

Fire load density

IFW:

Internal fire whirl

PBD:

Performance-based design

PC:

Prescriptive code

RSET:

Required safe egress time

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Acknowledgement

The work described in this paper was supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China, for the project “Wind action on supertall building fires and spread to adjacent areas” (PolyU 5135/12E) with account number B-Q31U.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    Wan-Ki Chow

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  1. Wan-Ki Chow
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Correspondence to Wan-Ki Chow .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Kyoto University, Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan

    Kazunori Harada

  2. Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Ken Matsuyama

  3. National Inst. for Land and Infra Mgmt, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

    Keisuke Himoto

  4. Toyohashi University of Technology, Toyohashi, Aichi, Japan

    Yuji Nakamura

  5. Shinshu University, Ueda, Nagano, Japan

    Kaoru Wakatsuki

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Chow, WK. (2017). A Discussion on Tall Building Fire Safety in the Asia-Oceania Regions. In: Harada, K., Matsuyama, K., Himoto, K., Nakamura, Y., Wakatsuki, K. (eds) Fire Science and Technology 2015. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0376-9_6

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