A computational study of fire and smoke plumes in a large indoor stadium

CFD is a powerful technique that provides an approximate solution to the governing equations for hot smoke plume in the buildings. The flexibility of the technique makes it possible to solve these equations in very complex spaces, such as a large indoor stadium. The main scope of the article is to study the availability and limitations of FDS numerical model for predicting hot smoke movement in a large indoor stadium. Some key design parameters of FDS model are tested to quantify the appropriate ranges for using in a large indoor stadium., such as grid arrangement, aspect ratio, and computational time. A scaling factor (characteristic length, R*) ranged between 0.1 to 0.15 may provide an acceptable accuracy for predicting the temperature of the hot smoke plume in a large indoor stadium. However, the simulation results show that the temperature profile is under-predicted within the transmission area of smoke and flame. © 2008, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.