- Author
-
Cooper, L. Y.
|
O'Neill, J. G.
- Title
- Fire Tests of Stairwell-Sprinkler Systems. Final Report.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
- Sponsor
- Occupational Safety and Health Admin., Washington, DC
- Report
-
NBSIR 81-2202,
April 1981,
83 p.
- Distribution
- AVAILABLE FROM National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, VA 22161. Telephone: 1-800-553-6847 or 703-605-6000; Fax: 703-605-6900. Website: http://www.ntis.gov
- Keywords
-
sprinkler systems
|
evaporation cooling
|
smoke movement
|
spray nozzles
|
stairways
- Abstract
- The effect of water curtain or spray nozzle fire protection of an open stairwell was studied experimentally. The experimental setup includes a three story stairtower with a contiguous first story burn room. The instrumentation used to measure the flow phenomenology resulting from fire sizes up to 4MW [13.6(10(6)BTU/hr] with and without sprinkler operation is described. A model of evaporation cooling of the hot fire gases as they pass up through the first to second floor stairwell-sprinkler system component is introduced. Based on this model the data are analyzed and correlated for the purpose of identifying both a cooling and a water usage efficiency for each of the system components that were tested. Application of these measured performance characteristics and their extension to stairwell-sprinkler components of different geometries and configurations are discussed.