Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

A model has been developed for the interaction of the buoyant smoke layer and the sprinkler spray. Based on the theoretical analysis, the ratio of the maximal drag force of unit area D0 and the maximal buoyancy force of unit area B0 in the spray region is proposed as a new criterion for predicting the stability of smoke layer under sprinkler spray. For validating the criterion, the sprinkler operating pressure and the smoke temperature are measured by using an experiment system located at the PolyU/USTC Atrium for sprinkler spray-smoke layer interaction D0 and B0 are calculated by using 3rd-order Simpson method. The experimental results show that the smoke layer remains stable when the D0 / B0 ratio is less than 1, and a downward smoke plume which represents the instability of the smoke layer forms when the ratio is more than 1. The driving force of the down- flow is the difference between D0 and B0.