Development of a hybrid field and zone model for fire smoke propagation simulation in buildings

A novel hybrid fire model combining the traditional field and zone modeling approaches to simulate the fire smoke propagation in a multi-storey building is presented in this paper. In the hybrid model, the field model is used to model the fire smoke movement in rooms with complex fire-induced airflow where the two-layer zone assumption of the zone model is not valid, e.g. in the room of fire origin. The zone model is used to model the fire smoke propagation in the rooms/corridors where the hot smoke layer is well stratified and the smoke movement can be reasonably simulated based on the two-zone concept. The fundamentals of the hybrid fire model are presented and discussed in this paper. The interface treatment between the field model and the zone model is presented in detail. In addition, some examples highlighting the application of the new hybrid model to simulate the smoke propagation in a multi-storey building are also presented. The hybrid model provides a more accurate prediction of fire smoke propagation and consumes less computational resources in comparison to the full zone and full field models, respectively.