Potential of window design to enhance natural smoke ventilation performance in the Malaysian public hospital buildings

Abstract

This thesis investigates the possibilities of improving natural smoke ventilation performance in public hospital buildings in Malaysia. In the hospital buildings, windows are the most common form of natural ventilation mechanism for thermal comfort and smoke ventilation. Natural smoke ventilation mechanism is to remove smoke, hot gases, and other effects of combustion in the case of a fire. Statistics on cases shows that numbers of catastrophic fire incidents in hospital buildings and other buildings reveal that smoke is the leading cause of deaths in the event of fires. Therefore, this research is conducted to investigate the possibility of windows design as means for natural smoke ventilation in public hospital buildings. In specific, the objective of this research is to investigate the effects of windows configuration in responding to the different wind directions on natural smoke ventilation performance. This research involves two stages. Firstly, the inventory exercise of three (3) selected public hospital buildings. This is to identify the wards and the windows design and, secondly, computer simulation using CFD software, FDS Version 6.3, to evaluate the existing windows configuration on natural smoke ventilation performance, and to evaluate the potential of the proposed windows configuration in enhancing the natural smoke ventilation performance. The analysis of fire and smoke behavior is conducted in 4-bed wards. The result shows that the existing windows configuration in the 4-bed wards is ineffective in safeguarding the life safety of patients as the Available Safe Egress Time (ASET) is below the Required Safe Egress Time (RSET) of 191 seconds. However, by increasing the size of the windows from 19 % to 22.73 %, the ASET for visibility and temperature increased by 113.7% and 76.47%, respectively. It is observed that the two models (M4 and M6) which are the vertical windows configuration with inlet louvers near the floor are able to serve as means for natural smoke ventilation strategy in public hospital buildings in Malaysia at 90º (parallel) wind direction. Thus, the findings of this research provide a guideline for fire and rescue departments, local authorities, healthcare providers, design professionals, and contractors in understanding, designing, constructing, and enforcing natural smoke ventilation design by means of windows design in the wards of public hospital buildings.