Upp í vindinn - 01.05.2009, Blaðsíða 36

DR.GEORGESGUIGAY
studied at the Joseph
FourierUniversityin
Grenoble, France, where
heobtained a B.Sc.
degree in Mechanical
Engineering in 1996
and a M.Sc. degree in
Numerical Simulation
in 1998, specializing in
Computational Fluid Dynamics. Fle has since
been working as a researcher and a consulting
engineer both in France and lceland. In 2004,
hejoined a PhD program in FireSafetyatthe
University of lceland and graduated in 2008.
He also gained a post-graduatedegree in
Hydrogen Safetyfrom the University of Ulster.
Georges has been working as Fire Safety
Engineer at Mannvit hf. and as teacher and
researcher at the Department of Environmental
and Civil Engineering at the University of
lceland since2008.
DR.BJÖRN KARLSSON
graduated in Civil
Engineering at
Heriot-Watt University,
Edinburgh 1985,
acquired a Licentiate
and a Doctorate degree
in Civil Engineering
atLund University,
Sweden in 1989and
1992, respectively. He has been Fire Marshal
and General Directorofthestate run lceland
Fire Authoritysince2001 and Docentat
the Department of Environmental and Civil
Engineering atthe University of lceland since
2005.
Björn isthe vice-Chairman of the lcelandic
Association of Chartered Engineers, Chairman
of the Heating and Venting Association and
the Secretary of the Association of Directors-
General in lceland.
Evaluating the fire
safety performance
of a building
Introduction to Fire Protection Engineering
Fire Protection Engineering is a developing discipline; it includes material science,
structure strength, chemistry, fluid mechanics and touches many other domains
such as medicine and psychology ([1], [2], [3]). Its goal is to reduce the number of
deaths and injuries in fire accidents, to educate and train firefighters to improve
their safety during interventions, and to reduce the cost of property damage. To
this end, it is important to develop predictive tools to help engineers with their
building designs by simulating complex problems like combustion, heat transfer,
smoke spread, human behavior and evacuation. However, despite all these efforts,
fire remains one of nature's most hazardous and unpredictable phenomena. The
discipline therefore requires continuous research.
During the last decades, building codes have been shifting from prescriptive to
performance based, in order to comply with the evolution of modern building
design, or to allow using buildings for other purposes than primarily intended to,
while still ensuring a sufficient level of safety. This approach strongly relates on the
development and performance of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes. In
this article, the possibility of using the skating hall of Reykjavík (Skautahöllin) for
rock concert is investigated, carrying a complete fire safety analysis by coupling
results from CFD and evacuation software.
ÓSKAR ÞORSTEINSSON
obtained a B.Sc. degree
in Civil Engineering
attheTechnical
University of lceland
1980. He worked with
firepreventionatthe
Building Authorityand
atthe Fire brigade in
Reykjavíkfrom 1994-
2007. He has been working at Mannvit hf.
(formerly VGK-Hönnun hf.) since2007.
GUÐNII. PÁLSSON
graduated in
Environmental and
Civil Engineering
atthe University of
lceland 1998and a
Masterdegree in Risk
management and Safety
Engineering from Lund
University 2004. He has
been working at Mannvit hf. (formerly Hönnun
hf.) since 1997.
Example of Fire Safety evaluation
Skautahöllin in Reykjavík was designed to
accept 1000 to 1200 people for its regular
intended usage. However, the owners now
want to investigate the possibility to organize
rock concerts, accepting about 4000 people
inside the building. This configuration needs
a completely new fire safety investigation,
especially regarding the evacuation time during
the early stage of the fire, when the concern is
not yet temperature or structural strength but
rather early evacuation and visibility, which
can be quickly affected by smoke. Therefore,
the smoke production and spread is simulated
by using Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) [4],
the most widely used CFD code within the
fire research and engineering community. In
parallel, the evacuation under fire is modeled
using BuildingExodus [5], a code which is
by considerable extent based on statistics,
evacuation experiments and psychological
studies on human behavior under fire threat
(M, [7], [8]).
Depending on the type of occupancy and
the characteristics of occupants, the fire
safety engineer determines a certain critical
value under which the visibility is considered
too poor to ensure acceptable evacuation
conditions. In this case, we’ll consider as
safety criteria a critical visibility level of V
= 10 meters, which is generally admitted as a
conservative choice.
Fire scenario and geometry
In this scenario, there is ignition which sets the
stage on fire.The 20 m2 buming stage creates a
fire equivalent to a 10 MW polyurethane fast
fire. On the roof are 3 smoke exhaust vents of
1 m2 each which trigger after 120 sec. and are
in full power (exhaustion flow rate Q^,haust = 20
m3/s) after 180 sec.The area of the first floor is
close to 2500 m2 and thc second floor (stand)
close to 450 m2. There are 9 different escape
doors, 4 in the skating hall and 5 close to or at
the main entrance of the building.
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