Research paper published in the journal Fire Technology, special issue on Smoke Control in Buildings and Tunnels.Pressurized stair cases are an important part of the fire safety strategy of
high rise buildings. Long egress times are compensated by creating safe environments
within egress staircases allowing the displacement time within those stairs as time
where occupants can be considered safe. The main mechanisms by which stairs are
‘‘made safe’’ are by guaranteeing structural protection of the enclosure and by elevating
the pressure within the stair to ensure that smoke cannot enter. Despite the critical
importance of this element of the fire safety strategy, the analysis and
implementation of these systems remain simplified. Simple models have been developed
using Bernoulli type formulations that account for static pressure and empirical
constants to calculate flows through doors and other leakage areas. Implementation
of these systems is even more simplified, consisting mainly of a direct feedback loop
that controls a fan output on the basis of a pressure measurement inside the stair.
The flow induced by the fan guarantees a minimum pressure. The pressure inside the
stair needs to be limited to enable doors to be open, thus pressure dampers are introduced
to release airflow in the event the pressure exceeds a specified maximum. Validation
of these methodologies was done in the 70s and 80s with very limited field
validation in real systems. This study presents an assessment of the performance of
pressurized staircases in six high rise buildings. All systems have been designed using
a similar methodology but implemented in different ways. In all cases the control
mechanism for the fan is a direct feedback loop from a single pressure sensor. The
results have been evaluated showing the limitations of the control system in the event
of multiple doors being opened and the limitations of the pressure release dampers
(as a response mechanism) if the pressure becomes unstable