Numerical study of the effectiveness of atrium smoke exhaust systems

This paper discusses the numerical study of the effectiveness of atrium smoke exhaust systems. This study is part of a project initiated by ASHRAE and the National Research Council of Canada (NRCC), in which both physical and numerical techniques were employed to determine the effectiveness of such systems and to develop guidelines for their design. This paper presents numerical predictions obtained using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model and compares the numerical results with the experimental data obtained from tests performed in this project. Results are also presented for a real-scale atrium and are compared to the results of the scaled-down models. In addition, comparisons are made between the experimental data and results from a two-zone model, as well as results obtained from empirical correlations.