Numerical verification of scaling laws for smoke movement in room-corridor structure

Smoke generated by fire in a building is carried by the indoor air motion. Thermal forces such as buoyancy induced by the fire are key factors in determining the air movement. Scale modeling studies are useful in understanding the smoke movement pattern, but scaling parameters have to be selected carefully. Two sets of scaling parameters on temperature and air speed proposed in the literature were evaluated by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). A room-corridor structure was considered and the CFD program TEAM was selected as the simulation tool. The package was used with significant modification. Effects of buoyancy on the turbulence model were included, and nonuniform distribution of buoyancy was allowed to affect both the mean flow and the fluctuating motions. Two-dimensional simulations were performed for having fast simulation results. Two sets of 18 room-corridor simulations were performed with different room sizes and thermal power of the fire. The predicted results are applied to criticize the two sets of scaling parameters.