Smoke management issues in buildings with large enclosures

Buildings that provide sporting, entertainment, and leisure facilities (e.g. sports arenas, exhibition halls, etc) can often contain large enclosed spaces or voids. In the event of a fire, these buildings often require the use of a smoke management system to provide conditions for safe means of escape for the building occupants. This paper raises a range of issues relating to smoke management in buildings with large enclosed spaces, including smoke management methods, design scenarios and some simple calculation methods. Experience of actual installed systems in real buildings has led to concerns on the efficacy of some smoke management systems, especially over the lifetime of a building. This paper discusses some of these concerns, real examples of sources of failure, and the importance of proper documentation, commissioning, maintenance and testing of these systems. As a way of addressing these concerns, a process validation methodology is presented to evaluate the design, the designer, the implementation of the design, and the long-term management, operation and maintenance of such systems