Full-scale and reduced-scale tests on smoke movement in case of car park fire

Full-scale and reduced-scale measurements along with numerical simulations have been carried out in order to increase fire safety in car parks, with particular focus on the smoke back-layering (SBL). SBL is the distance covered by the smoke upstream of the ventilation flow with respect to the fire source. It has been measured in both full- and reduced-scales and the results are compared to the literature. The investigated car park (full-and reduced-scale), has been simplified: ceiling and walls are plain and the final layout is similar to a Very wide road tunnel. Horizontal and vertical beams supporting the ceiling are not considered. Therefore the results obtained are only valid for large closed parks with a flat ceiling and uni-directional smoke and ventilation patterns within the investigated heat release rate range. The study serves double purposes: Empirical formulae can be obtained and the best model for SBL can be chosen from the existing correlations for road tunnel fires to be applied to car parks with the above described simplified geometries. If the results of the reduced-scale car park model are in accordance with the full-scale ones, the reduced-scale model can be used for more complex car park layouts, which is a very favorable solution in terms of both time and costs. In addition to the SBL investigation, unexpected flow phenomena at the entrance and extractors, respectively, are also explained by reduced-scale trials. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.