ACTIVE PRESSURE CONTROL IN HVAC SYSTEMS, A COST- EFFECTIVE SOLUTION TO LIMIT FIRE AND SMOKE SPREAD IN AIRTIGHT BUILDINGS

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1 ACTIVE PRESSURE CONTROL IN HVAC SYSTEMS, A COST- EFFECTIVE SOLUTION TO LIMIT FIRE AND SMOKE SPREAD IN AIRTIGHT BUILDINGS Pär Hansson, Mattias Arnqvist FSD Göteborg AB Elof Lindälvs Gata 1, Gothenburg, Sweden 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Summary In Sweden and the other Nordic countries the requirements on energy efficient and airtight buildings have always been high due to our cold winter climate. Demands have also grown increasingly higher in the last 20 years due to added requirements from an environmental efficiency perspective, which also is seen worldwide in the present and coming years. Introducing increasing airtightness in buildings also result in a number of fire safety issues. Due to the increased airtightness of the building envelope, pressure build-up caused by thermal expansion will be much greater. This is especially true in the early stages of the fire or for a small fire when all windows of the fire compartment can be assumed to be intact. The higher pressure in the fire compartment will increase the risk of smoke spread to adjacent fire compartment through the building HVAC system. The present solution in many countries to prevent this is to use mechanical fire dampers activated by temperature (usually around 70 C). Although being a common and pre-accepted solution in less airtight buildings this solution does not effectively handle the problems with increasing airtightness. In airtight buildings pressure rise and smoke spread will occur at lower temperatures when the dampers have not activated. In many countries this issue has been handled by introducing motorized fire dampers with requirements on smoke activation into the building code to also obtain a cold smoke activation. Though being efficient the solution has introduced large costs and service requirements into the HVAC fire protection compared to mechanical dampers. The need for more cost effective and manageable protection solutions, in combination with a performance based building code, has driven forth a number of alternative solutions in Sweden. These solutions are characterized by a high level of analytical design, utilization of components already installed in the HVAC system and cost effectiveness throughout both the build- and lifetime phase of the building. As a result of the wide application of these solutions, design criteria was introduced into the Swedish building code in 2011 in an effort to provide guidance and consistency in the achieved level of protection.

2 This paper will present why we believe smoke spread through ventilation ducts will become an increasing problem to be addressed, the theory behind the cost effective method to be adopted and possible applications for the method. Lessons learned from using this method for over a decade (and since 2011 as a part of the Swedish Fire Code) will be presented in another presentation in this conference (11 th SFPE Conference on PBC)

3 1.2 Smoke spread through the ventilation system how it will become an increasing problem Demands of a future residential building could be described in various ways and will also vary depending on climate, culture and economic situation. But a few things will always be desirable and make a common interest of high quality. We believe these demands will be: Comfort => Motorized air supply and exhaust Well insulated against thermal exposure Energy efficient and sustainable => Mechanical, common, ventilation system Heat recovery on exhaust system AC/filters on supply system Air tight facade Security => Defend in place strategy, each apartment shall be a safe zone. No smoke spread allowed!

4 All these demands will interact and depending on adopted solutions be in conflict with each other or, if done right, create a well-coordinated design that solve comfort, energy efficiency and safety in an integrated solution. With a ventilation system that connects several apartments the increasing risk of smoke spread between the apartments is obvious. With an airtight façade the potential pressure build up produced by the thermal expansion of the fire heat release will be greater and result in more smoke and combustible gases to be pressed into the duct system. The same demands and request for safety in case of fire can be transferred to other occupancies as hotels, homes for elderly and in some cases even schools and offices. 2 THEORY HOW SMOKE SPREAD OCCURS In a room fire scenario the accelerated heat release from the fire will cause a volumetric expansion of the heated air. The volumetric expansion continues until windows in the room containing the fire break and thereby release the pressure in the room, or until the fire has consumed so much oxygen that the rate of temperature increase ceases. The pressure increase will result in smoke being pressed through leaks in the facade and other parts of the building - and into the ventilation system. The better sealed a building is, the more combustion gases will be pressed into the ventilation system. Figure 1, Smoke spread through ventilation systems, T=temperature, P=pressure, q=flow, ρ=density, A=room area, h=room height, α=fire growth rate. (Source N. Olsson/P. Hansson, abstract for SFPE Conference 2013) Whereas the normal operation conditions for the ventilation system could be working with pressure ranging from Pa from fan until air is released in to the room, the potential pressure caused by the volumetric expansion can be Pa. This is why any attempt to just run the system in normal operation will fail and result in possibly more spread of smoke by primarily the supply side of the system.

5 Spread of smoke will occur when the pressure and flow from the room of fire origin is transferred to the common ductwork and the pressure difference between the duct and the adjacent apartment is greater than zero, P >0. If the extract fan is capable of constantly keeping under-pressure in the duct, even when influenced by the fire pressure, the smoke spread will be stopped from reaching other fire compartments connected to the system. 3 ALTERNATIVE TRADITIONAL SOLUTIONS The traditional solutions to prevent are well tested in practice and found to provide tolerable safety for occupants. However experience from these system in well insulated and airtight buildings are not as reliable and they also come with a variety of deficiencies. To briefly present the available options and the weaknesses they possess we provide a bullet point list below: - Unit systems (only serving one single fire compartment) o Expensive (compared to common system with single AH-unit) o Not energy efficient, no efficient heat recovery etc o Not sustainable and maintenance friendly - Fire dampers (spring operated, activated on fusible link) o Does not react on smoke, smoke spread occurs long before damper closes o Not sustainable and maintainable friendly o Not sustainable and maintainable friendly - Motorized Smoke/Fire dampers (spring operated, activated on smoke detection) o Expensive!!! o Not sustainable and maintenance friendly - Ignorance (ignore the problem) o Not safe!!! 4 DESIGN METHODS The design methods used for verifying solutions with active pressure control are based on a high level of quantitative analysis. This is required since pressure build-up from the fire compartment must be calculated together with pressure release from the fan combined with pressure losses throughout the system. This yields a complex thermodynamical problem that generally require computer models to be solved. See figure 4.1 VOLUMETRIC EXPANSION DUE TO FIRE As a fire progresses within the fire compartment the release of energy will cause the gases within the compartment to expand. This expansion causes a pressure rise which yield leakage flows at the compartment openings where the outside pressure is lower. The volumetric expansion is dependant on the temperature and can be assumed to follow the ideal gas law since the majority of the expanding gases is made up of air. As a consequence the expansion, pressure rise and yielded leakage flows will increase as long as the rate of temperature rise increases. If the temperature stabilizes within the compartment, the pressure will drop and the compartment will achieve equilibrium with the surroundings.

6 As the fire growth rate is normally modelled as a t-squared fire with constantly accelerating growth the same will occur for the volumetric expansion. This means that the volumetric expansion will constantly increase until a limiting factor is introduced. The following three limiting factors can be assumed to occur in different fire scenarios: - Flashover - Window breakage (does not limit fire growth but cause pressure release) - Activation of automatic fire control measures (e.g. sprinkler or smoke exhausts) The majority of fire scenarios where the active pressure control method is used will be in dwellings or hotels. In these compartments flashover is not likely to occur without first achieving window breakage. Therefore the two remaining probable limiting factors are window breakage or active fire control measures. To derive the volumetric expansion rate a number of methods can be used ranging from hand calculations to computer fluid dynamics. The most applied method is using simplified models derived from a large number of computer calculations for different room sizes, one of which is presented below: - 1,0394 q b = 0,081 α 0,4231 A 0,5009 h Where q b is volumetric expansion in m³/s, α is fire growth rate in W/s² and h is the room height in meters. The resulting pressure rise achieved within the compartment before reaching the limiting factor may in some cases climb to unproportional values. A maximum design pressure of 1500 Pa based on tests and calculation is therefore applied regardless of the volumetric expansion. 4.2 Pressure losses to the surroundings The calculated pressure within the fire compartment and therefore potential of smoke spread through the HVAC system will also depend on the pressure losses from the fire compartment. These losses are caused by all the openings the compartment has to the surroundings, also including leakage paths through the façade and other wall constructions. The pressure losses can vary greatly in different buildings depending on for example the general structure, presence of fresh air valves, energy requirements etc. This parameter is therefore often unique for each compartment and building and will have to be assessed using for example regulation requirements, handbooks and calculations. 4.3 Pressure losses and path of least resistance within the hvac system To finally calculate the flow rate of smoke entering the HVAC system and the path it will travel within the system the pressure losses and fan capacity within the system must be calculated. This will yield the final answer if smoke spread to other fire compartments will occur or not. The first pressure loss will be by the system intake valve from the compartment, which normally operates at around Pa but in fire scenarios can reach up to well over a 1000 Pa. The volume flow of smoke that pass the intake valve will the cause a pressure buildup within the system and spread throughout the ductwork. Where the smoke travels within the system

7 depends on the path of least resistance. The smoke will always flow in the direction of the lowest internal pressure loss to the outside. If the fan is chosen with an adequate capacity, the negative pressure caused by the fan will ensure that smoke will only travel through the fan to the outside (P1<P2). If the fan does not have enough capacity or malfunction, the path of least resistance may be through another fire compartment, resulting in smoke spread (P2<P1). Figure 2, Principle of travel path of smoke and path of least resistance. The pressure losses within the system and the smoke flow direction require a high level of system knowledge and complex iterative calculations and are almost exclusively calculated using computer models. 5 APPLICATION AND COMMON IMPLEMENTATIONS As with all fire safety measures active pressure control of HVAC systems have fields where application is more suitable and others where other solutions may be better. The main application of the solution is within residential buildings and hotels, but there are also possibilities in multi-tenant offices and as a fire investigation application. 5.1 Residential buildings and hotels The application in dwellings is by far the most common use of pressure control in case of fire for HVAC systems today. This is due to a number of different reasons. First of all pressure control has some major benefits in these types of buildings compared to conventional protection

8 with dampers. Because these buildings are characterized by numerous and small fire compartments the implementation of a damper protection requires a lot of dampers. This affects the cost of the system, the environmental implication as well as the lifetime cost and longevity of the solution. This is particularly the case with automatic, smoke activated, dampers where the initial and maintenance costs are even higher. Residential and hotel rooms are also significant in regards to the required fire safety level since they are intended for sleeping in, which means people may not detect smoke spread in the required time for safe egress. An active pressure control with a verified solution can clearly show that the required safety level can be fulfilled. In residential buildings a damper solution may also prove complicated since many dampers require maintenance at certain intervals. Legally however, it may not be possible to enter a residential apartment to perform the required maintenance, resulting in an uncertainty regarding the damper function in case of fire. With a pressure control system all of the active components can be placed inside or adjacent to the HVAC plant room, making maintenance more accessible and cost-effective. Apartment buildings and hotels have high requirements on the indoor climate. This usually means that the total airflow rate of the system is high relative to the floor area it serves. This is an advantage when utilizing pressure control systems since it yields a high dilution of smoke entering the system causing relatively low temperature at the fan. Systems serving a larger number of rooms or apartments can therefore use the normal exhaust fan bypassing the filter and potential heat exchanger without requiring a separate, temperature rated fan for the pressure control in a fire scenario. This reduces costs and maintenance issues even further. Active pressure control can also be used in older buildings as a way to improve a previously non-existing or lacking fire protection of the HVAC system. Since no, or few dampers are required, the need for localized measures out in the system is low. This means that much of the existing systems can be used and many parts of the building can be used as usual throughout the building process. There are also a few drawbacks when using pressure control in buildings with many small fire compartments. The likelihood of high pressure build-up is for example high due to the relatively small fire compartment areas and high requirements on the indoor climate. There is also a potential hazard in building up to high negative pressures in adjacent compartments when the smoke exhaust fan is running, causing to high opening forces of doors and hindering the egress possibilities. Since an active system also require activation and many fire compartments generally mean more fire detectors within the duct system the detection costs are also higher than in some other buildings. All of these drawbacks are however manageable and many ways exist today to minimize them, making residential and hotel buildings the ideal implementation of active pressure control in case of fire. 5.2 Office buildings One of the general rules of thumb when implementing active pressure control systems is that the benefits of a solution using a smoke exhaust fan connected to the normal ductwork decreases with an increase in fire compartment size. When fire compartment sizes reach and exceeds m 2 the proportion of the airflow and connecting duct area to one fire

9 compartment compared to the whole system starts to reach a breaking point where the costeffectiveness of the solution becomes lower than for conventional solutions with dampers or separate systems. There are of course exceptions to this rule but it is generally true. This makes the implication in office buildings smaller since many office- or corporate buildings today contain fire compartments exceeding 1000 m 2 in size. Pressure control is however still a great alternative in multi-tenant offices where the fire compartments are smaller and insurance issues often require fire compartmentation between tenants. In those types of office building the solution can also offer great flexibility since there is generally no, or only small, need to make physical adaptions within the system if the tenant layout is adjusted. Such changes can instead be verified by adjusting the design calculations with the new conditions. The total airflow rate of the systems in office buildings are also generally high, yielding low temperatures at the fans. Another advantage in office buildings is that they generally have a higher possibility of being equipped with other active fire safety measures. An existing fire alarm system can for example be used to activate also the active pressure control system, removing the requirement of separate fire detectors in the duct system. If an automatic sprinkler system exist, the effects can be taken into account in the design calculations, reducing the requirements on the pressure control system. 5.3 Fire investigations Since the methods utilized when designing a system with active pressure control are used to predict smoke spread through the HVAC system they can also be used to reconstruct events that have occurred in real fires. This can be used to assess why fire spread to different areas at different times of the fire scenario and investigate what the outcome would have been if other safety systems had been introduced. 6 Conclusions and future possibilities As mentioned in the beginning of this article the continuous strive for higher comfort and integrated solutions in HVAC systems will open more possibilities for the implementation of active pressure control solutions in the future. Systems that are reliable, maintenance friendly and cost effective are always welcome on the market, both by fire safety engineers, investors and end-users. The challenges is to use our engineering skills to design reliable and robust systems and avoid poor design. Since the method to use active pressure control in the HVAC-systems has been used in Sweden already for more than a decade and has been adopted as a part of the Swedish Fire Safety Code (BBR / BBRAD) since 2011 a vast knowledge and experience has already been gained.

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