The existing local fire code ¡§Standard for Installation of Fire Protection Facilities in Classified Areas¡¨ is prescriptive in nature and suitable for buildings, which can be well compartmented. It also described the minimum requirement for specific system designs such as fire and smoke compartmentation, mechanical smoke extraction rate, etc. on item 188. In this reserch, the concourse level encountered large spaces and is the vital part for passengers¡¦ movement, either under normal condition or in emergency cases. Therefore, a performance-based fire engineering design has been exercised which is also allowed in local fire code subject to approval from the authorities having jurisdiction. First, a comparative study of the code compliances should be addressed, with the alternative design options supported by 3D CFD simulation. The FDS (Fire Dynamic Simulation) program was utilized for this reserch for 3D CFD simulation. It is developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of U.S.. FDS is a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of fire-driven fluid flow. The software solves numerically a form of the Navier-Stokes equations appropriate for thermally-driven flow with an emphasis on smoke and heat transport from fires. Secondly, it is decided that a full-scale hot smoke test should be conducted to validate the smoke management system performances under the as-built conditions. It can be summarized that, following the NFPA 92B N-percentage Criteria, both test 1 and test 2 results indicated that the hot smoke tests are successful, in validating that a sufficient smoke clear height can be maintained for safe evacuation should a 5 MW t-squared fast fire occurred at the concourse level. Finally, following the NFPA 130 and NFPA 92B as the design guides, the performance-based fire safety engineering design conducted in concourse level, is successful through 3D CFD simulations and full-scale hot smoke test. A smoke¡Vfree escape route can be maintained for a period of time much longer than needed for the worst case fire scenario which warrants a safe evacuation in case of a 5 MW fire occurred on concourse level.

Many large space buildings have been built in Taiwan during the past decade and people are very concerned about the fire safety inside the large space. Therefore, a performance-based smoke management system with makeup air system has been exercised. For steady flow, the mass flow of air or smoke exhaust from the top of an atrium equals the mass flow of air entering below the smoke layer. This airflow entering the atrium is referred to as makeup air, and the makeup air can be either supplied naturally or by fan power. In this research, various full-scale hot smoke tests for makeup air systems will be performed to evaluate the temperature distribution of smoke layer and the smoke descending rate at ABRI large space fire lab in Tainan. The experimental results obtained will be utilized as an important reference to establish the code of smoke management system with makeup air system in Taiwan.