On stairwell and elevator shaft pressurization for smoke control in tall buildings

Elevator shaft and stairwell shaft-pressurization systems are studied as means of smoke migration prevention through the stack effect in tall buildings using the CONTAM simulation software. A thirty story building model is considered with exterior leakages calibrated to experimental data for both a residential and a commercial building. Stairwell pressurization is found to be completely feasible in the absence of elevator shaft pressurization. In contrast, coupled elevator shaft-pressurization systems are found to produce prohibitively large pressure differences across both the elevator and stairwell doors if (1) minimum pressure differences must be maintained at both open and closed elevator doors and (2) if the system must function properly when the ground floor exterior building doors are closed. Even in these cases situations arise in which smoke may enter the shaft and be actively distributed throughout the building by the fan system. These differences between stairwell and elevator shaft pressurization are directly attributable to the much larger leakage areas associated with elevator doors. Relatively large flow rates through the open elevator doors act to pressurize the ground floor of the building, indirectly causing large pressure differences across upper floor elevator doors. Furthermore, the results show that there is a strong coupling between the fan speed requirements of the stairwell and elevator shaft-pressurization systems. Fan requirements are also found to be sensitive to the ambient temperature. Effects of the fan location, louvers, vents, the building height, and the number of elevator cars and/or shafts are also addressed.