133 Numerical Studies on Fire Environment in an Auditorium Available to Purchase

Performance-based design used to be applied to fire safety provisions in many green building projects that have difficulties in complying with prescriptive fire codes in the Far East. Thermal fire models are widely used for fire hazard assessment. In this paper, the thermal environment in a stage fire within an underground auditorium will be studied. Consequences of different scenarios were simulated by a thermal fire zone model. Objective of the study is to evaluate whether requiring a shutter of 4-hour fire resistance period is really necessary. Variations of the smoke layer temperature and smoke layer interface height with time would be predicted. Numerical results indicated that all the stage was full of smoke after 5 min. The upper layer temperature was higher than 400°C even for a 6 MW fire. Therefore, it would not be dangerous for the occupants staying at the auditorium for 2 hours. High air temperature would be reached and kept for a period but shorter than 2 hours. Therefore, a fire shutter of 2-hour fire resistance rating is sufficient.