Smoke Propagation Characteristics and Smoke Control Optimization for Corridor Style Elderly Nursing Homes

Vollständiger Abstract

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Abstract With the intensification of population aging, fire safety issues in corridor-style elderly nursing homes, particularly those associated with horizontal smoke propagation, have attracted increasing attention. This study established a BIM-PyroSim numerical model to investigate smoke propagation characteristics and smoke control performance in corridor-style elderly nursing homes. Three representative fire scenarios were considered: an open corridor without smoke control (Case 1), a corridor with closed fire doors at both ends (Case 2), and an open corridor equipped with natural smoke exhaust windows (Case 3). Temperature, CO volume fraction, and visibility at both ends of the connecting corridor were monitored. The simulation results showed that within 600 s, the temperature under all scenarios remained below the critical threshold of 60 ℃. Natural smoke exhaust resulted in slightly higher temperature levels and earlier CO threshold occurrence (400 ppm reached at 262.8 s, compared with 270.0 s in Case 1), although the final CO concentration was slightly reduced. The visibility reduction time showed only a minor difference between Case 3 and Case 1 (159.0 s vs. 165.6 s). Furthermore, sensitivity analysis of smoke exhaust window area demonstrated that increasing the exhaust opening area only produced limited changes in temperature and steady-state CO concentration, while the overall trends of smoke propagation and visibility deterioration remained unchanged. Closed fire doors effectively restricted horizontal smoke transmission, maintained hazard indicators below critical thresholds in the protected area, and delayed smoke hazard occurrence by more than 400 s, increasing the available safe evacuation time by 241.55% compared with the open corridor scenario. These findings indicate that natural smoke exhaust without fire separation provides limited smoke control performance, whereas automatic smoke-triggered self-closing fire doors are recommended as an effective smoke control strategy for corridor-style elderly nursing homes.