P

THE DESIGN OF MORE SECURE PRESSURIZATION SYSTEMS IN

STAIR CASES OF HIGHRISE BUILDINGS
Michael Haas, Peter van de Leur and Alexander Winthorst
Introduction
In high rise buildings it is essential that exit staircases remain free of smoke during evacuation. Around the world,
pressurizing systems are often used to keep exit stairs in tall buildings smoke free. The design of pressurization systems
are not easy, because of the stack effect: horizontal air flow in staircases, due to temperature difference between
outside air during cold or warm weather conditions and conditioned air inside the building. This effect has the
potential of overcoming the overpressure in the staircase and allowing smoke entry from the fire floor into the
staircase, or unacceptably high opening forces to enter the stair, possibly preventing a safe evacuation.
DGMR Consulting Engineers was involved in the design and testing of a pressurization system of the staircases of a
highrise office building in The Hague. Limitations imposed due to late introduction in the building process lead to a One person bedrooms One person bedroom
design that may offer a solution for the difficulties in the design of pressurized stairs.

Pressurization system
A pressurization system should function in two different settings to prevent smoke to enter a staircase. In the situation
where all stair doors are closed, the system maintains a pressure difference between the staircase and the fire floor.
During the evacuation of a building or during fire fighting proceedings, the door between the fire floor and the
staircase inevitably will be opened. In that case the system should provide an air flow from the staircase to the fire
floor, preventing smoke ingress in the staircase.

A pressurizing system consists of a fan and ductwork for air supply and an air or
smoke release device on every floor of the building. This air exhaust system is
formed by a dedicated shaft or of simple opening in the façade of the building. The
pressurizing system is controlled by a fire detection system and/or a sprinkler alarm
. of the doors. Practical tests on the spot with pressure and leakage measurements were held to assure the shaft doors
system.
were air tight enough. These tests were also held to check that the doors and penetration seals would withstand the high
Pressurization systems are vulnerable to adverse effects of the stack effect and
negative pressure in the shaft.
smoke ingress during evacuation. Often a design minimum pressure differential is
maintained, using the lowest measured pressure differential from the sensors. In cold
weather conditions, modulating the fan based on the lowest value will lead to too
high pressure differences high in the staircase, due to the stack effect.
P Control system
Another general problem is the response time of the system. When exit doors open When either the smoke detection system or the sprinkler system is activated on the fire
and close, a modulating system is constantly ramping up and ramping down the fan. floor, the shaft door on that floor is released. The fan of the air release shaft is turned
Titel (36pt)
This could lead to unacceptable high opening forces to open exit doors. on and starts to accelerate, which leads to increasing pressure difference between the
fire floor and the stairs. At the same time the air supply fan is started which results in a
Naam (20pt)
positive pressure in the staircase. Both the air inlet shaft of the exit stairs and the air
Design challenges release shaft are supplied with a variable frequency drive (VFD). The VFD of the inlet
shaft adjusts the air inlet to the stairs and therefore the pressure. The positive pressure
When DGMR got involved in the project, construction work had started, and the in the staircase is set on the pressure difference between the staircase and a reference
building design did not contain any form of air release for the pressurization system. line. The staircases are divided into three sections, separated by doors, the reference
Half way through the building process exhaust ducts were added to the building. line was connected to a floor outside the section. E.g. the lower section ranges from ASF ASF ARF
Room for these shafts was limited. the ground floor to the 11th floor, the reference line is connected to the 12th floor. s s

C 38
Analysis with building airflow model CONTAM developed by NIST revealed that the The VFD of the air release shaft adjusts the air flow of the air release shaft. Pressure
system would not function without extremely powerful fans in the air release shafts. differential gauges on every floor measure the pressure difference between
RC 37

The CONTAM model also pointed out that very high negative pressures would occur occupancies and the staircase on the same level. The fan of the air release shaft RC 36 p p

in the air release shaft and therefore also on the fire floor. This could easily lead to accelerates until, on any floor, the pressure difference exceeds a limiting value of 70 RC 35 P P

unacceptably high door opening forces. The challenge here was to design a system Pa. If this limiting value is reached the fan of the air release shaft is shifted down.
that would never lead to blocked access doors to the staircases.
RC 34 P P

RC 33 P P

Another design challenge was imposed by the building having openable windows. reference line
Section 3 RC 32 P P

This meant the pressurization system should be able to operate in the situation air
P RC 31
where all windows of the building were closed and the building is air-tight, as well
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release
PTR1S3 PTR2S3
fan
as in the situation where one or more windows were opened. The figures underneath P Reference
RC 30 P P

shows the pressure difference gradient between the staircase and the floors in case ASF air supply fan
RC 29 P P

of closed windows. Left: closed windows, right with door opened. P

ARF air release fan RC 28 P P

P
s shunt
P
Finally wind will result in ever changing conditions in and outside the building.
RC 27 P P

RC-## fire compartment

RC 26 P P

air supply
P P Pressure differential gauges
RC 25 P P

air supply
RC 24 P P
Stair case Stair case pressure difference across stair
door
RC 23 P P

neutral
pressure levels 1 When the stair door on the fire floor is opened, an air flow occurs from the staircase to RC 22 P P

neutral the fire floor. The pressure in the staircase drops, both the fan of the air supply shaft RC 21 P P

cold warm warm

pressure level
and the fan of the air release shaft accelerate. When the stair door on the fire floor is
height

RC 20
closed, a peak pressure will develop that is picked up by the sensors. Both the air
P P

Poutside
and supply fan and the air release fan are ramped down within seconds. This causes a short RC 19 P P
cold

cold

Pstairs
period in which a lot of force is needed to open the staircase door. Because both the airSection 2
PTR1S2 PTR2S2
RC 18
Poutside P P

2
Pinside and inlet and the air release are measured and modulated separately, both access to the RC 17
Pstairs
stairs and pressure difference is maintained. The principle is shown in the picture
P P

Pinside
below. The VFD of the air release shaft. Pressure differential gauges on every floor
RC 16 P P

Absolute pressure Absolute pressure measure the pressure difference between occupancies and the staircase on the same RC 15 P P

all windows open all windows closed level. The fan of the air release shaft accelerates until, on any floor, the pressure RC 14 P P

difference exceeds a limiting value of 70 Pa. If this limiting value is reached the fan of

Solutions
RC 13
the air release shaft is shifted down. differential
P P

RC 12 P P

In one of the two towers the only solution was to dedicate a small storage room on every floor to the pressurization
Conclusions
RC 11 P P

system. As mentioned before, because of structural reasons, the holes in the floors could not be larger than 0.5 m2 in RC 10 P P

total in both towers. As stated, an analysis with building airflow model CONTAM showed that an extremely high
Scheiding 12 122

Pressurization systems are difficult to design because of the impact of stack effect. For RC 09
pressure drop would occur in the 140 meters high shafts, caused by the exhaust air accelerating and decelerating on all
P P

the new office building of the Ministries of Justice and Interior Affairs the Hague the
floors. To prevent the necessity of even higher pressures a steel ducted shaft was installed to smoothly guide the air up challanges to be solved were the addition of air release shafts in a building that was
RC 08 P P

the shaft. High standards were imposed regarding the air tightness under construction, the extremely high pressures that were expected in the air release RC 07 P P

PTR1S1 PTR2S1

/ shafts and the ever changing pressure differences as a result of wind and of open or RC 06 P P

closed windows. RC 05 P P

Section 1

A stair pressurization system was designed that will keep the pressure difference across
RC 04
P P

the stair door below dangerous levels even under these adverse circumstances. The RC 03 P P

system set up guarantees an air flow across the door opening on the fire floor, also RC 02 P P

when doors on other floors are opened during evacuation. RC 01 P P

RC BG TR1 TR2 ABG

Acknowledgement
A team, consisting of building services consultants (Deerns Installation Engineers), contractor (JuBi T), system supplier
(HC-RT) and DGMR Consulting Engineers, worked together to design and build a robust pressurizing system for the stairs
in a building already under construction. The Government Buildings Agency (Rijksgebouwendienst) and the project
supervisor (Brink Groep) were very cooperative and supportive in the process.
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