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ATLANTIC SQUARE
Project Status
Location
Project Value
Service Provided
Under construction
Glasgow, U.K.
£ 65 000 000
Fire & Smoke control analysis of the Theatre during means of escape
ATLANTIC SQUARE
FIRE & SMOKE ANALYSIS
Through analysing a large open plan office space, a natural shaft comparison was required to compare the performance of the mechanical ventilation system to that of a compliant natural shaft. The open plan office and stairwell was a large space with the model having a total cell count of over 10 million cells
COMMERCIAL
PROVIDING VITAL OFFICE SPACE
Part of Glasgow's International Financial Services District (IFSD), a hub set up to attract businessses and talent to the city, Atlantic Square is a large 300,000 sqaure foot mixed used space for offices and retail. Atlantic square is comprised of two buildings, a 6 storey and 10 storey building, with both having retail spaces at the base and a basement car park.
HMRC will lease approximately 187 205 sqaure foot of the office space in building 1 to hold approximetly 2700 people.
EVALUATING A VITAL SAFETY SYSTEM
K8T provided analysis of the mechanical smoke ventilation system (MSVS) within building 1 of the Atlantic Square development. Level 1 of the building was a large open plan off with approximately 2000 square metres of space and was served by two stairwells, with one used as a firefighting shaft. The stairwell served 12 floors with the lobby also being served by six lift shafts.
The MSVS used a grille located at high level located within the stairwell lobby along with a Automatically Opening Vent (AOV) located at the head of the stairwell. A large office fire was modelled within the open plan office using Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) to perform the simulation.
FIREFIGHTING VISIBILITY
Following criteria established within the British Standard BS 7974-6 : 2004
FIREFIGHTING TEMPERATURES
Following the criteria established in the Smoke Control Association (SCA) Guide
With a large office fire in the open plan office area, firefighters require temperatures within the lobby area to stay within tenable conditions as well as no smoke ingress occurring into the stairwell.
Tenable criteria can be established from British Standards and Guidance documents from CIBSE and the SCA, to determine the temperature levels and the amount of time firefighters can safety operate in the space.
To able relevant parties to easily understand the outcome of the simulation the temperature data bounds were colour coded and linked to the relevant documents to allow an easy to read indication of where there different temperature ranges were occurring in the office space.
MODEL SCALE & COMPLEXITY
FDS was used as the modelling software to determine if the MSVS system can perform to tenable criteria.
The scale of the space made problems occur in regards to ventilation of the fire and the size of the mesh used to create the model. With such a large open plan space the fire had to be adequately ventilated to ensure the correct fire growth and that there is enough fire t sustain the fire. The model also had to complexity of being over 10 million cells, with a even cell size of 0.1m. Through having over 10 million cells, the model required a server cluster to perform the simulation in a reasonable timeframe.
