Designing car park ventilation

systems

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Whitepaper
(c) 2015 Colt International Licensing Ltd

Colt whitepaper - Designing car park ventilation systems

Summary
Enclosed or underground car parks normally require ventilation systems to assist firefighting operations.
These systems generally also prevent the build-up of carbon monoxide during normal day to day use of
the car park.

This whitepaper covers:

1. Traditional ventilation for car parks

2.The new look of car parks

An explanation of the basic legislative

requirements and how these are
achieved using impulse ventilation

Traditionally, underground car parks and other

enclosed car parks have generally been poorly
lit, damp, of low spec construction and perhaps
with a bit of an odd smell about them.

However things have moved on: more and

more often people are realising that because
most people arrive at a shopping centre or a
company by car these days, it is a good idea to
help them form a good first impression of the
underground car park, which is the first thing
that they will see.

Application of impulse ventilation,

both for carbon monoxide and for
smoke clearance or smoke control
The advantages of impulse ventilation
over traditional ducted extract
systems
Use of CFD
How impulse ventilation can be
used to control smoke movement,
allowing smoke control to be used, as
part of a fire strategy, to compensate
for the relaxation of other legislative
requirements, e.g. travel distances

To cap this, where mechanical ventilation has

been required, this has been tended to be
through a ducted system with extract points
at high and low level. If this approach is taken,
depending on the size of the car park, the
extract requirement can be very large and
therefore the ductwork needs to be equally
large in size and extending all over the car
park down to ground level. These systems
take up a lot of room, causing headroom
problems for vehicles and getting in the way of
pedestrians, as well as reducing the number of
available parking spaces.

A case history of a particular project

where travel distances were relaxed
using impulse ventilation designed for
smoke control. An explanation of how
this project was validated using CFD
and live fire tests
Control systems.

So therefore car parks these days are much

lighter, more open, much more pleasant places
to be. One significant contributor to this is
the change away from traditional mechanical
ventilation to impulse ventilation systems.
Impulse units are small fans which direct fumes
and in the event of a fire, smoke, towards a
single extract position, thereby getting rid of
all the internal ductwork and result in a much
cleaner, tidier appearance.

Colt whitepaper - Designing car park ventilation systems

3.The legislative requirements

In England and Wales the requirements for ventilation in car parks come
from approved Document B and approved Document F to the Building
Regulations. Scotland and Northern Ireland have similar regulations.
They set out requirements for car park ventilation, giving options for
natural or mechanical ventilation.
a) Open sided and naturally ventilated car parks
Certainly if the car park is above ground then normally it is best to
provide natural ventilation, because compared to mechanical ventilation
it is simpler, cheaper to procure and there are no running costs.
Anyway such car parks are regarded as having a higher level of fire
resistance.
Car park type
Open sided

Naturally
ventilated

Mechanically
ventilated

ADB
Fire Safety

5%*

2.5%*

10ACH

ADF
General Vent

5%

2.5% + 3ACH

6ACH

* Of which at least 50% should be split equally between two opposing walls to provide
crossflow ventilation
ADF limits CO concentrations to 30ppm over 8 hours and 90ppm over 15 minutes.

An open sided car park is defined as one where there are natural
ventilation openings in the walls which equate to at least 5% of the
floor area. So if a car park measures 1,000m2 then 50m2 of ventilation
area will be needed. There is a further requirement that the ventilation
area should be split, so that at least a quarter of it is down each of two
opposing sides and reasonably evenly spaced so it creates cross flow
through the car park. The other 50% of the ventilation can be put in
wherever you can find room for it.
If the 5% cannot be achieved then there is an option for 2.5% of
ventilation area and that works in exactly the same way in that a quarter
of it needs to be provided down each of two sides. If there is 2.5%,
then while this is regarded as totally satisfactory for smoke ventilation,
it is not regarded as adequate for day to day fume ventilation. Therefore
a small mechanical system providing 3 air changes an hour (ACH) to
supplement the natural ventilation is needed.
b) Mechanically ventilated car parks
Normally an underground car park wont have any natural ventilation at
all. In this instance there are requirements for mechanical ventilation. 10
ACH is required in fire mode and 6 ACH for general ventilation. Again
the requirements are for a system designed to ensure that we get a
reasonable ventilation flow throughout the car park.
In terms of general day to day ventilation all of those requirements
are actually deemed to satisfy the requirement to achieve a maximum
carbon monoxide concentration of 30 parts per million (ppm) averaged
over 8 hours, leading to an environment which is both pleasant and safe.

Colt whitepaper - Designing car park ventilation systems

4. How does impulse ventilation work?

5.The design approaches: (a) smoke clearance

Impulse ventilation systems move the air throughout the car park and
ensure that the air goes where we want it to go, rather than where
it would flow to if left to its own devices. It is a simple method of
ventilation that uses the thrust created by small fans that discharge air
at a high velocity to create a large air movement at low velocity.

It is important to understand that there are two different smoke

ventilation design approaches available and to understand what can be
achieved with each.
A smoke clearance system clears smoke in the case of a fire.
Traditional or impulse ventilation are suitable for smoke clearance
systems.

An impulse fan is suspended from the ceiling and arranged to provide an

air movement to meet the design requirements. The airflow is normally
angled downwards in such a way that there is mixing throughout
the height of the car park. As that jet of air leaves the fan, then the
turbulence in the air starts mixing it with the ambient air around it so
that as one moves further and further away from the impulse fan then
the flow of a jet from the fan spreads both vertically and horizontally
and creates a relatively low air velocity across quite a large area. So
with a few well-positioned impulse fans based around a building, the
flow of air through that building can be controlled very efficiently.

Smoke clearance is intended purely to assist the fire service by clearing

smoke once the fire has been brought under control and returning
the car park to use. It is not intended to achieve any clear conditions
within the car park and generally will result in complete smoke logging
of the car park.
Smoke clearance is not going to help people escape and it is not
certainly going to compensate for any extended travel distances. All it
really does is to provide a means of getting smoke out of the car park
after the fire and ensuring that the smoke in the car park is kept to a
reasonably low temperature, thereby reducing the risk of flashover.

For example a fan providing an airflow of 1m3/s with a discharge velocity

of 20m/s can result in a general air movement of about 10m3/s at 1m/s
as the airflow from the fan spreads out.

6.The design approaches: (b) smoke control

As an alternative to smoke clearance, it may be desirable to design
a smoke control system: going beyond the requirements of the
Building Regulations, this will actually keep part of the car park clear of
smoke either to aid escape or to aid the Fire Service and provide an
alternative to sprinklers. In countries which also require relatively small
fire compartments in car parks, then smoke control systems can also
provide an alternative if the Regulatory Authorities agree.
In other kinds of buildings smoke control is usually provided by maintaining the smoke layer well above head height. Due to the low ceiling
height in most car parks it is not usually possible to achieve the vertical
separation between the clear air and the smoky layer above as is done
with more traditional systems. Instead, control of the smoke is achieved
by creating a clear area upstream of the fire location whilst allowing the
area downstream to smoke log. This makes it suitable for firefighting by
providing fire fighters with clear air in which to approach the fire and
enabling them to locate the fire more easily. Generally, this can only be
achieved with impulse ventilation.

The image shows the velocity vectors produced by the CFD

representation of a Colt Cyclone 100 fan unit
This is a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) image of an impulse
fan showing how the flow of air mixes down the car park. CFD is a
means of providing a 3 dimensional visualisation of the flow of air
around structures. In this case red is fast air movement, green and
blue is slower air movement. The angled thrust from the fan is clearly
demonstrated and shows that there is no longer a need to have extract
at high and low level as the air is fully mixed downstream of the fan.

As regards the above statement that a smoke control system can

be installed as an alternative to sprinklers, in fact in most of the UK
sprinklers are not required in the majority of car parks. These tend to
be designed for car parks which are a bit special, perhaps because they
have got stacked systems, or because they are attached to shopping
centres where sprinkler systems are needed.

An extract system is still required, but extraction is only needed from a

single point in the car park with the smoke directed towards it by the
impulse fans.

Colt whitepaper - Designing car park ventilation systems

7. Design guidance: BS 7346-7

As set out above, in England and Wales
Approved Documents B (ADB) and F (ADF)
provide recommendations for the ventilation
of car parks.
However, in recognition of the fact that
previously there was nothing to provide
guidance for the approving authorities
regarding impulse ventilation systems, BS 7346-7
was published in 2006 to cover ventilation in
car parks. This provides recommendations for
impulse ventilation systems alongside further
details on traditional systems, as well as
detailing the approaches to smoke control and
day to day ventilation.

8. System requirements for natural

ventilation
As set out above, where natural ventilation is
being considered, then either 2.5% or 5% of
the floor area is needed as natural openings.
In ADF there is an unusual definition of the
area of those openings, called the equivalent
area. The actual definition is: A measure of
aerodynamic performance of a ventilator. It
is the area of a sharp edged orifice which air
would pass at the same volume flow rate,
under an identical applied pressure difference,
as the opening under comparison.
This takes into account any obstructions to
the airflow such as louvres, grilles or even

plants, but it is not a simple definition! What

it basically means is that the aerodynamic free
area of the ventilation openings is divided by
0.6 thereby resulting in the equivalent area.
This means that the aerodynamic free area of
the opening needs to be known, which should
be relatively straightforward if the ventilator
is something like a louvre system, which
the manufacturer can normally provide. If
something like a wire mesh screen is involved
then there is usually generic information
available from a CIBSE Guide or other sources
which again will tell you what the typical
aerodynamic coefficient will be. However if the
ventilation openings are a bit special, the only
way to find out that aerodynamic performance
is, is to actually test it.

9. System requirements for smoke clearance using mechanical

systems

10. Other considerations when designing in mechanical

ventilation systems

ADB sets out some additional requirements for smoke clearance

using mechanical ventilation systems above what is needed for natural
ventilation:

Traditional ducted systems cause a number of issues in terms of ceiling

height. Obviously a minimum clear height is needed for vehicles to
travel through the car park. Against this, in an underground car park
the soffits should generally be as low as possible to minimise dig out
costs. Such soffits very often have drop down beams to help support
the structure above, and therefore there is a fairly limited area which is
available for ductwork to pass under these beams. The low level inlets
that are needed tend to impede parking bays and they often require
barriers for protection, so to conclude such ducted systems are a bit of
a nuisance within a car park.

a) The system should be designed to run in two parts each capable of

extracting 50% of the required extract rate. What this means is that
if one fan fails then there is still at least 50% of the airflow. So
although it is possible to have more than 2 fans if the design of the
car park demands it, the minimum number is 2.
b) Each part to have an independent power supply to operate in the
event of mains power failure.

This is probably the main reason why impulse ventilation has largely
taken over from ductwork. There are various other reasons why
impulse ventilation systems are generally better and why it is
uncommon these days for a traditional ducted system to be installed
unless there is a particular benefit in terms of the particular layout of
the car park.

c) Extract points to be arranged such that 50% are at high level, 50%
at low level. With the traditional ducted systems this was achieved by
having the ductwork with grilles at high level and then having
dropper ducts coming down to floor level, again with grilles in them.

Impulse ventilation removes the need for ductwork and low level
intakes, providing:

With an impulse system there is no ductwork system. Instead there

is a large extract point somewhere in the car park, normally floor to
ceiling, so effectively there is half the extract at high level and half
at low level just by providing that single extract point. There is also
the benefit that the impulse fans themselves provide a lot of mixing
between high and low level, so again throughout the car park air
mixing is good.

A safer, lighter environment

Improved security for CCTV
A potential increase in number of parking bays
Easier and quicker installation less storage required on site
Fewer clashes with other work packages
Lower power consumption due to less resistance on main
extract fans
Lower height constraints leading to possible reduced dig out costs.

d) Fans to be rated to run at 300OC for a minimum of 60 minutes and

ductwork to have a melting point not less than 800OC. Any fan rated
at F300 to EN 12101-3 (the standard for smoke extract fans) will
meet that requirement. The ductwork melting point of 800OC might
seem an odd requirement since standard galvanised steel ductwork
wont melt at that temperature, so any ductwork that is actually
needed within the car park area can just be standard galvanised steel
duct to DW144. Obviously once the ducting goes outside of the car
park area then the ductwork may then need to be fire rated
depending upon where it is running.

Colt whitepaper - Designing car park ventilation systems

11.The types of ventilation equipment available

Probably the most common type of impulse fan is a circular unit with
a central axial flow fan with attenuators either side of it, so it is a very
simple unit. The Colt Jetstream shown on the right is designed to be
aesthetically pleasing and it has specially shaped attenuators to keep the
diameter to a minimum and to match the fan. It is also quite common
for a standard circular attenuator to be placed on the end of a standard
smoke temperature rated axial fan in order to reduce cost, though
this is not so aesthetically pleasing. Those sorts of fans generally are
typically rated at 50 Newtons thrust; typically they are about 400mm
in diameter, and one of those units will cover an area of about 400m2
and will have a throw of about 20 30m. If the fan was to be tested
in a wide open space then the throw would actually be more than this
but of course the car park has columns, cars and all sorts of other
obstructions so the throw is limited by these.
The alternative is what is has become known as an induction fan. The
Colt Cyclone shown on the right is an alternative to the Jetstream and
has the advantage in that we can provide higher rated units, typically
rated at 75 or 100 Newtons. They are also shallower, which can be an
advantage if the designer is aiming to keep the height of the car park to
a minimum, and they are also significantly shorter, so if there are a lot
of down stand beams relatively closely spaced, then it is much easier to
install these than it is to install a standard impulse fan. But basically both
types of fan do exactly the same job and it is simply a case of choosing
which one is going to be the most convenient and most cost effective
for the particular project.

The main extract fans are also needed and

two typical examples are shown here. Shown
on the left is a typical system for a small car
park there is just an axial fan with podded
circular attenuators either side of it. Larger
car parks typically require much bigger fans
and rectangular attenuators are very often
needed to provide the attenuation that we
need to keep noise down to reasonably low
levels as shown on the right. CIBSE Guide
Volume A: 1999, Environmental Design, sets
out a recommended maximum noise level of
NR 55 within the car park itself. There is no
single guideline for the limitation of external
noise, since the attenuation requirements will
depend upon the local environmental health
requirements. Typically systems are designed
for about 55 dB(A) at 3m, though some
systems will need to be higher, some will need
to be lower.

Colt whitepaper - Designing car park ventilation systems

12. Designing smoke clearance systems

The design of smoke clearance systems is relatively simple. The extract
is sized to provide at least 6 ACH to all levels at the same time and 10
ACH for the largest level in smoke mode. The assumption there is that
there is only going to be one fire and it is only going to be on one level,
therefore we need to provide our 10 ACH extract from that level.

based around the rule of thumb that typically one 150 Newton unit is
needed per 400m2. This provides a rough number of units and then the
locations of the units are selected to match the geometry of the car
park.
Because the design is done by skill and experience rather than by
calculation, then generally Building Control wants to see a CFD model
to confirm that the system actually works very well. However in a
simple car park and with an experienced engineer the CFD model is
largely unnecessary but it is often the only way that Building Control
approval is going to be secured, so it generally needs to be done.

The impulse fans are located generally over roadways so that parked
cars are not going to impede the airflow too much, and they are
generally laid out to ensure that we dont get any stagnant areas within
the car park. The actual layout is basically determined by the skill and
experience of the engineer: there are no particular guidelines to inform
the designer exactly where to put the ventilators. Instead the layout is

13. Smoke clearance systems and the Bristol car park tests

When impulse ventilation was initially introduced within car parks,

there wasnt really much guidance or knowledge of the systems and it
was almost a leap of faith that the systems actually would comply with
Building Regulations.

The car park was filled with smoke for approximately 4 minutes using
smoke generators and warm air heaters to give the smoke a degree of
buoyancy. When the generators were stopped the visibility was down
to approximately 10m.

Because of this Colt carried out some test work in 2004. The purpose
of the tests was to provide a comparison between the performance
of a traditional ducted system and impulse systems in the same car
park. The car park was 50m x 30m x 2.9m high with a well distributed
extract system and inlet coming through the ramp.

In each case, the time taken to clear the smoke from the car park was
measured, giving a comparative measure of the performance of each
system.
System

Time to see

Time to
clearance

Traditional

27 minutes

42 minutes

Jetstream

19 minutes

33 minutes

Cyclone

17 minutes

28 minutes

The results demonstrate that the impulse ventilation and the induction
ventilation systems were both much quicker to clear the smoke
than the traditional ducted system. These tests provided confidence
that these newer kinds of systems do actually comply with Building
Regulations and are as good as or better than traditional ducted
systems.
We modified the existing ducted ventilation system so that we had
the option of extracting either through the distributed ductwork or at
a single extract point located top centre in the diagram, and installed
some impulse and induction fans and checked the performance of those.
Three tests were carried out using the same approach with each test so
that a comparison could be made between each of the three systems.

Colt whitepaper - Designing car park ventilation systems

14. Designing smoke control systems

With a smoke control system the design becomes much more complex:
there are many more calculations involved in it and much more
engineering. As described above, the purpose of such systems can
include extending travel distances, avoiding the need for sprinklers or
getting rid of the requirement for compartmentation of the car park.

Thus in general terms the design of the smoke control system is based
around working out what velocity is needed over what area and then
ensuring that the system can provide that velocity over that area.
Having provided that velocity, it is important to ensure that the
smoke which we are pushing towards the extract point is then totally
extracted and does not re-circulate and come back behind the fans.

The first thing we need to know is how big the fire is likely to be. There
are three standard steady state fire sizes set out in BS 7346-7, based on
test work which is being done around the world:

Thus such systems do not work on a simple 10 ACH of extraction, as

would be required with a smoke clearance system. Sufficient smoke
extract would be needed to match the flow rate that we achieve and
generally that smoke extract rate is going to be significantly greater than
it is with a smoke clearance system.

Sprinklered: 14m perimeter 4000 kW

Unsprinklered: 20m perimeter 8000 kW
Sprinklered 2 tier stack: 14m perimeter 6000kW

15. Smoke control systems for narrow car parks

The smoke and heat from a car fire rises vertically to the ceiling and
spreads out rapidly in what is termed a ceiling jet in concentric circles
out until something stops it.

The principle for a narrow car park is shown here. By knowing what
the velocity of the smoke flow is going to be, the impulse fans can push
the smoke, in this case from right to left. The guidance sets out that
if the design is to enable fire fighter access, then the aim should be to
keep areas that are more than 10m away from the fire clear of smoke,
allowing clear approach to within 10m of the fire. The entire width of
the car park does not need to be kept clear of smoke, but there should
be just sufficient space available from the fire service entrance point to
wherever the fire is so that they can see where the fire is and fight it.

As the smoke spreads in these concentric circles, the further away it

gets from the fire the lower the velocity becomes, so by providing an
opposing velocity the smoke flow can be stopped at pretty much any
distance from the fire, and the smoke can be pushed back as long as
there is enough velocity. Sufficient thrust needs to be employed to push
the ceiling jet in the opposite direction using air flow from the impulse
ventilation system.

16. Smoke control systems for wide car parks or service

tunnels
With wide car parks it becomes impracticable to achieve a velocity
across the whole cross section area because the mass flows would
need to be ridiculously high. So then it is necessary to zone the car
park so that we can detect where in the car park the fire is and provide
ventilation and then only over a limited width to limit the ventilation
flow rates.
With smaller car parks smoke is pushed away from fire fighting access,
allowing clear approach to within 10m of the fire in order to assist fire
fighting.

Below is an example of a system which we designed for a tunnel which

is connected to a car park.

Highcross Shopping Centre car park road tunnel

Colt whitepaper - Designing car park ventilation systems

Case history: ventilation for the service tunnel at the

Highcross Shopping Centre in Leicester

from the tunnel, but it was considered that this would not be
practical due to the large volume of smoke to be extracted. This
chosen smoke control design was modelled and verified using (CFD)
to prove its ability to operate against very onerous wind conditions.

A road tunnel has been built to provide an exit route from the car
park. The tunnel is approximately 125m long with the road sloping
down towards a central horizontal section and passing under the
main retail development.
Due to the single direction of traffic flow, there is an increased risk
that an incident in the tunnel would block traffic flow, meaning that
those trapped behind it would most probably have to evacuate on
foot, while those ahead of it could continue to drive out of the
tunnel. The approach chosen was to use Colt Cyclone fans to stop
smoke from flowing upstream and direct it towards the tunnel exit,
preventing the smoke from affecting the evacuation of the occupants
whose vehicles are trapped.

The design is based on a two car fire. In fire mode, the ventilation
system is designed to move smoke in the same direction as the
traffic flow. This means that vehicles downstream of the fire can
continue driving, and leave the tunnel. Occupants of vehicles trapped
upstream of the fire are protected from the smoke so that they can
be evacuated safely, on foot, as necessary. Fire fighters attending the
scene can approach the fire in relatively smoke-free conditions to
within approximately 10m of the fire location within the tunnel, as
required by BS 7346-7, even when there is a significant opposing
wind (modelled at 8 m/s) and a smoke from an 8 MW car fire. No
extract plant is required.

The alternative would have been to use a ducted extract system

See www.coltinfo.co.uk/highcross.html for further info.

17. Detailed design considerations with smoke control systems

for wide car parks

2. Typically a smoke detection zone size of up to 2,000m2 and a smoke

control zone size of up to 3,000m2 are used, because if the fire is on
the edge of the detection zone then the smoke is going to spread a
little bit.

With a larger car park then it is not quite as easy because there arent
the walls there to constrain the fire. The image below is of a typical
quite large car park. There is an extract point in the bottom right, air
inlet through the ramp at the top right, and at the top left there are
some fans providing inlet air which are basically a secondary extract
point which can be reversed to provide inlet. This is because in this
instance, depending upon where the fire is in the building, we can
either extract top left to bottom right or bottom right to top left.

3. The extract rate must equal the bulk air movement, not 10 or
12 ACH.
4. It is necessary to achieve the required velocity across the cross-
sectional area of the zone some lateral spread should be expected.
5. If the scheme is to permit fire-fighting, the aim is to limit the smoke
to maintain 10m visibility everywhere that the Fire Service needs for
entrance until they get within 10m of the fire.

In this case the car fire is within the red area in the middle of the car
park and the blue areas are effectively clear of smoke. Rather than
creating airflow across the whole width of the car park, the use of
selective fans combined with appropriately located extract points
enables the spread of smoke to be limited to a particular area of the
car park. This makes it very easy for the Fire Service to come in and
get close to the fire and start fighting the fire in clear conditions. In this
case the system was designed to avoid the need for sprinklers which
was a requirement for this particular car park in Scotland.

6. If the scheme is to aid people to escape, then the aim is to ensure

that there is a safe escape time and generally this is achieved by
limiting the smoke to a relatively small area, so that people can
escape from that area and then have as much time as they need to
escape from the car park in generally clear conditions.

When designing this sort of system there is a set of basic guidelines that
should be followed.
1. The system must be linked to a zoned fire detection system so only
the zone containing the fire activates. It is important for the system
to know exactly where the fire is to operate the correct fans and
so there is more onus on the detection system. So, it is necessary
to identify the zones which are going to be used, and theres a need
to link to a smoke detection system which is zoned so that only the
zone containing the fire will activate.

Larger projects must use a zonal system: in a fire, the use of selective
fans upstream of the fire forces the smoke towards the extract point

Colt whitepaper - Designing car park ventilation systems

Case history: a smoke control system in a large car park at

Liverpool One
See www.coltinfo.co.uk/paradise-street.html for further info.
Liverpool One is a very large retail development in the centre of
Liverpool with a large 4 storey enclosed car park. Above the car park
is Chevasse Park, a green open space, into which the designers werent
permitted to put escape stairs. Therefore extended travel distances
were required which in turn required a smoke control system within
the car park, which assists both escape and fire-fighting.
The car park has four levels of parking, the largest of which is about
300m x 100m and each of these levels has about 30 induction fans.
Typically each 100 Newton induction fan will cover about 1000m2 and
in this case the area is 300 x 100m = 30,000m2 so in fact around 1 fan
per 1,000m2 has been used roughly the same as would be required in
a smoke clearance system. So having a smoke control system doesnt
necessarily increase the number of impulse or induction fans that are
needed but it does significantly increase the extract required.
In this instance there are a number of extract points on the north side
of the car park which provide a maximum of 200m3 per second and
supply points on the south side at fixed locations providing a little larger
supply. In this particular case 10 ACH would have equated to about
150m3 per second, so there is not a massive difference between the
smoke clearance and smoke control requirements. Naturally if the car
park was half as wide or half as long, say 150m, then we still would have
needed 200m3 per second extract but 10 ACH would have equated
to only 75m3 per second, so the dimensions of any car park have a
significant impact on the design.

North side extract positions

Flow direction

South side supply air

The above image is a drawing showing the

basic layout of the car park and the general
direction of flow. There were two key design
objectives:

During the escape phase (0 to 10 minutes)

smoke needed to be kept within a limited
and relatively narrow zone, maximum 50m
wide and with a plan area of 2-3,000m2, to
ensure that if anybody that got caught within
it they didnt have to travel more than 25m
to be out of the smoke and in a safe area
where they could then escape at their
leisure.

10

During the fire-fighting phase (10 to 30

minutes) smoke should not encroach
backwards too far, so that the Fire Service
could actually approach the fire from the
rear in relatively clear conditions to within
10m of the seat of the fire, to assist fire
fighting in lieu of sprinklers.

Colt whitepaper - Designing car park ventilation systems

Typical fire location

CFD modelling at Liverpool One

In this case the CFD modelling predicted smoke movement and
temperatures throughout the car park. In this case because a timedependent fire rather than a fixed fire size was required, we modelled
a growing fire based upon a single fire initially growing up to 4 MW,
decaying and then spreading to 2 adjacent fires and peaking at about 9
MW after 20 minutes.

Extract

Fire
Cyclone fans

Outline of one of the models showing the extract, supply air, cyclone
fan locations and fire position

Quite a few different scenarios were modelled in the car parks because
different layouts and different floors were under consideration. In the
above illustration the fire is shown in red, the little green area is an
escape staircase. This was regarded as being quite a difficult condition
because the fire was just behind the staircase, which would tend to push
the smoke wider, and if a 50m width of smoke could be achieved here
then obviously 50m would be achieved in the areas without that kind
of obstruction. In this case 6 cyclone fans were positioned in the area
behind the fire.
Almost
clear

50m width
indicator
Dense
smoke

Visibility at 10 minutes
The above image shows visibility at 10 minutes into the fire and it can
be observed that the smoke there was kept within the 50m limit.

Smoke
layer

50m width
indicator

Clear air for fire

service access

Visibility at 20 minutes

Visibility at 20 minutes: horizontal section

At 20 minutes into the fire the smoke hadnt actually spread very far
laterally but it had spread backwards at high level, against the flow of the
fans.

On the other hand the horizontal section shows that there is a clear
layer underneath the smoke at and behind the fire, and therefore there
was plenty of access for the Fire Service to get close to the fire with no
problems at all.

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Colt whitepaper - Designing car park ventilation systems

Middlesbrough Fire Test

Empirical tests at BRE for Liverpool One

Fire

However the above were purely CFD models and because this was such
a high profile and large project the authorities were quite concerned as
to whether the CFD modelled real life realistically. So to prove that the
CFD would model real life Colt built a relatively large scale model of
the car park at BRE in Middlesbrough.

Cyclone fans

35m long

Obviously it would not be possible to model either a 300 x 100m car

park or a 9 megawatt fire, so a relatively small space was used and the
fire scaled down to 1 MW. The test rig was built out of scaffolding and
covered by a canvas which was open at either side and at either end. It
did not matter that only the Cyclone impulse fans and no extract fans
were being used since the objective was to prove that the CFD worked
rather than that the system worked.

Middlesbrough fire test rig

However it was necessary to conduct the testing only on fairly still

days in order to get the test rig to work properly. The rig had natural
openings at either end which caused problems during the tests with
changing wind directions - in one test, the wind was able to reverse the
flow against the thrust of the Cyclone fans. This clearly demonstrated
the importance of careful attention to possible adverse wind pressures
when designing smoke control systems.

The rig was 30m wide, 35m long and 3m high with a fire on one side
basically so that it could be considered as a 2 MW fire, as the test was
only looking at one half of it. A fire was set in a burnt out car shell using
a tray of diesel fuel sized to provide a heat output of 1 MW. A typical
car fire is reckoned to be about 4 MW peak output, but 1 MW was
deemed large enough to provide a useful simulation without being a
danger to those involved.

30m wide

Dense smoke
downstream
of fire

Light smoke
recirculated

Middlesbrough Fire Test: Visibility at a height of 2m

Light smoke
upstream

Middlesbrough Fire Test: 3D visualisation of soot density

So before the test rig was built and tested a CFD model was run
which showed where smoke would be expected to flow and with what
density. The above image shows that quite dark smoke was expected
downstream of the fire, but also that there would be some recirculation just from the end of the rig so that some light smoke would
be re-circulated within that area. This was borne out in the empirical
tests.
A BRE-endorsed video clip of the tests is available from
www.coltinfo.co.uk/paradise-street.html.
Next, lets turn to consideration of controls - an essential part of any
system. For car park ventilation, this subject can be split into two parts,
for day to day usage and for fire.

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Colt whitepaper - Designing car park ventilation systems

18. Control systems: day to day usage

19. Control systems: usage in a fire

The Building Regulations mention 6 ACH for day to day ventilation, an

air change rate that is designed to ensure that 30 ppm of CO is not
exceeded in quite a heavily used car park. However most car parks are
actually not used that heavily for quite large periods of time so if the
system is run at 6 ACH then an awful lot of energy is wasted and a lot
of unnecessary noise is created.

The system would normally be activated into fire mode via the smoke
detection system in the case of a fire, though sometimes it is done
manually by the Fire Fighters override switch. Generally once the
system goes into fire mode all the fans are switched over from their day
to day mode, and the extract fans run at high speed to provide the 10
ACH.

Main extract
fans

Jetstream/Cyclone
fans

Low CO
(below 15ppm)

3 ACH

Off

Intermediate CO
(15 to 30ppm)

3 ACH

Low speed

High CO
(30ppm and over)

6 ACH

Low speed

If the car park is multi-storey at that point the dampers will be closed
on all levels except on the fire floor. The impulse fans are not switched
on for a few minutes, since in the early stages of the fire there is
probably not an awful lot of smoke and what smoke there is will be at
fairly high level, because as the smoke is warm it rises and spreads under
the ceiling, so it is not a particular risk to people who are escaping for
the first few minutes. During that period people escape, and then the
impulse fans are started again. They will have the effect of dispersing
that smoke but they will also spread it between high and low level so
they do actually tend to smoke-log the car park more quickly than if
no impulse fans were running. However that adverse effect is more
than compensated for by the fact that we are much reducing smoke
temperatures and greatly increasing the safety within the car park.

Its therefore become common practice instead to use CO detection

throughout the car park and to use the output from this to decide how
at what rate to run the system.

20. Whats next?

Typically a fairly simple design schedule might be as shown in the table

above. If there are very low CO levels then the main extract fans would
provide 3 ACH and the impulse fans wouldnt be run at all. If CO levels
increased then the impulse fans would be switched on, and if they
continue to increase up to 30 ppm then the main extract fans would
provide the full 6 ACH, again with the impulse fans running at low speed.
This provides a reasonably efficient system that uses a minimum energy
but still provides a good level of safety.

Traditional ducted ventilation systems have been almost completely

replaced by impulse or induction type systems since their introduction
about 10 years ago. They have enabled designers to do more and more:
for instance it has been possible to cut out the need for ventilation in
the lobbies to the stairs by virtue of showing that negative pressure is
provided in the car park outside by using an impulse ventilation system,
and there is widespread use of them for means of escape as well as firefighting applications. No doubt these systems will continue to evolve to
provide further useful applications.

The reason that the entire system is not switched off if there are very
low CO levels is that there is always a slight concern that if cars are
within the car park there could be a petrol tank failure or carburettor
leak of petrol, which could potentially cause a flammable atmosphere
and therefore to avoid that risk just a minimum background ventilation
rate is generally kept going through the car park the entire time.
However if the car park is going to be totally empty at night then there
is no reason then why the system should not be totally switched off.

About Colt

Since 1931 Colt has been harnessing the natural elements to provide healthy, comfortable and safe working and living conditions
in buildings. Colt is a specialist in smoke control, climate control and HVAC systems, industrial ventilation and solar shading, with a
presence in more than 50 countries.
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