HVAC

Smoke Management
at Frankfurt

Airport

by Ingo Cremer, Joachim Luy, Jens Elmers, and Albrecht Gill, Fluent Germany

An overview of the buildings at Terminal 1

n Germany, the occurrence of one severe fire accident at an airport has led officials to review the existing fire protection strategies for airport buildings as
well as those for renovated terminals. Thus when the
renovation of Terminal 1 at Frankfurt Airport was planned,
fire protection scenarios had to be checked and possibly optimized. In order to compare the performances
of different concepts, FLUENT simulations of the original geometry of the terminal were ordered by the airport authorities. For validation purposes, experiments
using a 1:20 model were performed.
The effort began with simulations of the external air
flow around the buildings that make up the terminal. The
results were used to predict static pressures along the outer
surfaces of the buildings and at several potential building openings. A second set of simulations focused on fire
management inside the departure hall of Terminal 1. Of
particular interest was the time-dependent dispersion

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of smoke using different combinations of ventilation fans

and openings. Results from the external simulations were
used to identify the optimum locations for fresh air supplies for the fire scenarios.
For the external flow simulations, GAMBIT and TGrid
were used to build a hybrid mesh of about 4.9 million
cells, based on engineering drawings of the airport buildings. This model spans a geometric region of 2830 x
2830 x 500m3. Surrounding the building of interest, a
typical mesh size of 0.9m was used. An exponential profile for the wind velocity as a function of height above
the ground was used as a boundary condition. Two wind
conditions were considered: one blowing from the
Northeast at 3.7 m/s (8 mph), and one from the Southwest
at 5.4 m/s (12 mph). The simulations were performed
using the parallel version of FLUENT. All of the external flow results, even the pressure levels on the building surfaces, were successfully validated through

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HVAC

measurements on the scaled structure.

Because of a tall building adjacent to (and south of)
the departure hall, the pressures on the roof of the departure hall were found to be different for the different wind
conditions. This important realization made it clear that
the smoke management had to be based on a combination of fans and natural smoke outlets, rather than
on outlets alone. Fans ensure consistent smoke extraction, independent of exterior weather conditions that
might compromise the efficacy of the outlets.
The second phase of the project involved an examination of the flow field inside Terminal 1 itself, with the
primary goal being the optimization of the smoke management system in the departure hall. A mixed concept of mechanical and natural ventilation systems was
tested. The internal geometry was again created in GAMBIT based on engineering drawings of Terminal 1. Most
of the meshing was done in GAMBIT as well, while TGrid

was used to assemble the meshed parts into a whole.

The resulting mesh had 1.3 million cells. To have the
flexibility of placing trial outlets where needed, this model
was equipped with openings in many locations. For each
simulation, the inactive outlets were switched to walls
in FLUENT. The calculations were again performed using
the parallel solver.
All fire simulations are inherently unsteady. Taking
into account the flow physics, safety requirements, and
flow handling devices typically used for fire prevention
tasks, a sophisticated time dependent control system
was developed. At t=0, the fire is assumed to begin.
After one minute, it is detected, and after another minute,
the smoke outlets are activated. Three minutes after the
fire begins the extinguishing system is activated and after
ten minutes, the fire fighters arrive on the scene.
For the indoor simulations, fires at five different locations were set up following the guidelines of a fire pro-

Static pressure on the outer surfaces of the buildings during

northeast (above) and southwest (below) wind conditions. The
tall structure at the center alters the pressure on the roof of the
adjacent departure hall for the different wind conditions.

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HVAC

The geometry of the internal model (left)

showing some of the grid detail (right). The
departure hall is the area colored green in
the geometry.

tection expert. The fires were modeled as transient sources

of hot smoke in FLUENT with a number of simplifying
assumptions. Most of the fire simulations were run for
a physical time of 8 minutes, using a time step that ranged
from 0.2 to 4 seconds. In spite of the simplifications
made, all of the simulations showed good agreement
with experimental measurements from the scaled
1:20 model.
Several optimization runs were performed for the different fire locations. During this phase of the project, it
became evident that dividing the hall volume into active
smoke management segments had a very positive effect
on the smoke exhaust, because the fans were loaded with
the nearby smoke and not air. In contrast, attempts to
dilute the smoke with air had a negative effect. The contaminated volume merely grew more rapidly and, as a
consequence, more fans with a given volume flow were
needed to carry the smoke-air mixture out of the hall.
In addition to segmenting the hall, attempting to
create a layer of smoke in the upper region while keeping air in the lower region of the hall was found to be

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advantageous, especially near the escape routes. In order

to achieve this, the mixing of smoke and air had to be
suppressed and a stable stratification of gases had to
be achieved with a well-chosen combination of ventilation fans and building openings. To achieve this goal,
it was found that windows should not be opened in
the wrong places, and that fresh air supplies in general should be large enough and far away enough to
avoid unwanted mixing.
In the course of the project, several parameters were
modified as the five different fire locations were independently studied. Special care was taken for regions
with low ceilings, where it was more difficult to create
and maintain a thin smoke layer well above the floor.
Properly positioned fans and smoke outlets were critical for keeping a nearly smoke-free layer, about 2m
thick, on the floor, to allow people to escape safely.
Based on the experimental and CFD results, the airport management is able to judge renovation measures beforehand in order to maintain a high level of
airport security.

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