BRAVENT - Efficient smoke ventilation of small fires

There are over 180 fire incidents annually due to arson in Norwegian schools. The fire service responds annually to some 110 fires in schools. Most fires are minor in terms of heat release rate and damage caused by heat, but substantial amounts of smoke can be produced, which may cause damages beyond the room of origin.

The public sector reports that a lack of design guidelines has caused a wide spread of different ventilation strategies and systems in their buildings. Additional challenges occur when older buildings are modernized with new ventilation and control systems that need to be adapted to the existing constraints of the buildings. System tests conducted in schools have shown that the ventilation system's fire mode disturbs the pressure balance in the building to an extent where self-closing doors will not close and closed doors may not be opened due to pressure differences. During evacuation, this may lead to smoke spreading through doors that was intended to close and that evacuation routes are blocked.

The innovation concept of this project is to use the existing comfort ventilation system to control smoke and pressure in the event of small-size fires schools. With the increasing complexity of the ventilation systems, ventilation systems check-ups have become a daunting task for building managers, particularly in buildings with fire dampers, as they are typically installed in not easily accessible areas and are hard to test and reset. The innovation includes a control plan to evaluate fire safety of the existing ventilation system and a guideline on how to design a cost-effective fire safe ventilation system. Such concept can be easily adopted to all buildings equipped with comfort ventilation system.

If the proposed concept is proven to be effective, not only a better pressure and smoke control can be achieved during a fire, municipalities can reduce installation and maintenance cost by reducing the dependence on fire dampers.