There have been some heated debates on this issue. I have a White Paper which outlined numerous testing scenarios with vents, curtains and sprinklers.
Here is the Conclusion of the research. INTERACTION OF SPRINKLERS WITH SMOKE AND HEAT VENTS Craig L. Beyler and Leonard Y. Cooper Hughes Associates, Inc. - Fire Science and Engineering Baltimore, Maryland 1999 "CONCLUSIONS The studies of smoke and heat venting used in conjunction with sprinklers show clearly that venting does not have a negative effect on sprinkler performance. Successful performance of sprinklers does not rely upon reduced oxygen concentrations. Venting has been shown to have no effect on the activation times of early sprinklers and does not affect the total number of sprinklers activated. If the fire is directly beneath a vent, activations of the first sprinklers may be delayed slightly, but there is no evidence that this will have a significant impact on sprinkler performance. Experimental studies have shown that venting does limit the spread of products of combustion by releasing them from the building within the curtained compartment of fire origin. This improves visibility for building occupants and firefighters who need to find the seat of the fire to complete fire extinguishment. Limiting the spread of smoke and heat also reduces smoke and heat damage to the building. In the event that sprinklers do not operate, venting remains a valuable aid to manual control of the fire. The experimental studies have shown that early vent activation has no detrimental effects on sprinkler performance and have also shown that current design practices are likely to limit the number of vents operated to one and vents may in fact not operate at all in very successful sprinkler operations. Design practices should move to methods which assure early operation of vents, and vent operation should be ganged so that the benefit of roof vents is fully realized. Sprinkler design with vents and draft curtains needs to take full account of draft curtains as obstructions. Curtains should be placed in aisles rather than over storage." If anyone would like the full text which includes the various testing scenarios, e-mail me and I'll send you a copy. Craig L. Prahl, CET Fire Protection Specialist Mechanical Department CH2MHILL Lockwood Greene 1500 International Drive PO Box 491, Spartanburg, SC 29304-0491 Direct - 864.599.4102 Fax - 864.599.8439 [email protected] http://www.ch2m.com _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
