Fire Whirls and Building Aerodynamics

Numerical modeling of the behavior of fire and smoke within proposed building atria have revealed the possible presence of violent fire whirls or fire tornadoes induced by an inadvertent combination of ventilation and exhaust openings. Such fire vortexes can accelerate combustion up to ten times that seen during conventional fires, rapidly move fire and debris across available evacuation routes, and produce fire and smoke risks beyond those traditionally considered by existing fire codes. Past laboratory studies of fire whirls are used to validate the ability of a numerical code to reproduce fire whirl dynamics. Subsequently, the cfd code is used to evaluate the strength and character of fire whirls produced by a combination of fire, mechanical ventilation or natural ventilation in a generic atrium.