Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

To obtain knowledge to prevent upward fire spread caused by ejected hot gas, experimental studies have been done by using reduced-scale models of a high-rise apartment building. It is believed that the balcony configuration influences air flowing in through opening, hot gas ejected out through an opening, and flow outside the fire room. Changing balcony configuration, temperatures inside and outside of the fire room were measured and analysed. The following results were derived. Temperature in the fire room varied with balcony configuration. To evaluate the effects of balcony configuration an 'enclosure ratio' was introduced. Temperature in fire room increased with the enclosure ratio. The probability of upward fire spread was evaluated by the temperatures on the outer wall and the temperature at the exits of balcony. The probability was dependent on balcony configuration. Temperature obtained by CFD simulation was in qualitative agreement with experimental results.