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Fire Safety in Green and Sustainable Buildings
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Fire Safety in Green and Sustainable Buildings

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Engineering and Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2022) | Viewed by 18206

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Cheuk Lun Chow

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Interests: green and sustainable buildings; fire safety
Prof. Dr. Koen Steemers

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
The Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies, Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1PX, UK
Interests: sustainable buildings; sustainable and circular cities; architecture and wellbeing; behaviour and building performance
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Green and sustainable buildings are promoted actively all over the world. The aims are to protect the environment, use less energy through natural ventilation provisions and daylight utilization, develop better waste management, and take water conservation into account. Areas involved are architectural features including building construction element; electrical and mechanical systems to give a comfortable environment, but where the system would use energy, directly or indirectly; and management including energy management, environmental management, and fire safety management.

However, there are many conflicting fire safety requirements for environmentally friendly designs for green and sustainable buildings. For example, compartmentation would affect natural ventilation provision. Driving forces due to wind action and stack effect might give air flow in carrying smoke particulates generated from the fire room to the adjacent area. New ventilation design without careful consideration of safety issues might lead to faster development of fire or smoke spreading. Using flammable clean refrigerant may lead to explosions.

Consequently, there are delays to or even rejection of green or sustainable building projects. Performance-based design has to be applied to determine fire safe provisions for green buildings. This Special Issue is proposed to report the potential conflicts between fire safety and environmental green architectural design, engineering systems, and environmental management to have fire safety in a complementary role, and to propose solutions.

Both research and review papers on fire dynamics and materials, passive building construction, active fire protection systems, fire safety management, fire investigation, and fire services for green and sustainable buildings are invited. Performance-based design for projects failing to comply with fire regulations with fire models and fire hazard assessment is welcome.

The topics include:

  1. Scientific aspects of fire and explosion hazards associated with green buildings and environmental management systems;
  2. Utilization of numerical simulation, physical experiments, and field surveys to provide fire-safe design for green and sustainable buildings;
  3. Architectural and building design, electrical and mechanical systems, and building management for green and sustainable buildings;
  4. Updates of fire safety standards/regulations for green buildings;
  5. Case studies on fire hazards of green and sustainable buildings projects.

Dr. Cheuk Lun Chow
Prof. Dr. Koen Steemers
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • fire
  • explosion
  • green
  • sustainable buildings

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 3602 KiB  
Article
Simulation of Possible Fire and Explosion Hazards of Clean Fuel Vehicles in Garages
by Chi Wing To, Wan Ki Chow and Fang Ming Cheng
Sustainability 2021, 13(22), 12537; https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212537 - 12 Nov 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2409
Abstract
Clean fuel is advocated to be used for sustainability. The number of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and hydrogen vehicles is increasing globally. Explosion hazard is a threat. On the other hand, the use of hydrogen is under consideration in Hong Kong. Explosion hazards [...] Read more.
Clean fuel is advocated to be used for sustainability. The number of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and hydrogen vehicles is increasing globally. Explosion hazard is a threat. On the other hand, the use of hydrogen is under consideration in Hong Kong. Explosion hazards of these clean fuel (LPG and hydrogen) vehicles were studied and are compared in this paper. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software Flame Acceleration Simulator (FLACS) was used. A car garage with a rolling shutter as its entrance was selected for study. Dispersion of LPG from the leakage source with ignition at a higher position was studied. The same garage was used with a typical hydrogen vehicle leaking 3.4 pounds (1.5 kg) of hydrogen in 100 s, the mass flow rate being equal to 0.015 kgs−1. The hydrogen vehicle used in the simulation has two hydrogen tanks with a combined capacity of 5 kg. The entire tank would be completely vented out in about 333 s. Two scenarios of CFD simulation were carried out. In the first scenario, the rolling shutter was completely closed and the leaked LPG or hydrogen was ignited at 300 s after leakage. The second scenario was conducted with a gap height of 0.3 m under the rolling shutter. Predicted results of explosion pressure and temperature show that appropriate active fire engineering systems are required when servicing these clean fuel vehicles in garages. An appropriate vent in an enclosed space such as the garage is important in reducing explosion hazards. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fire Safety in Green and Sustainable Buildings)
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12 pages, 1257 KiB  
Article
An Article on Green Firefighting Equipment in Taiwan
by Yu-Hsiang Huang and Tzu-Sheng Shen
Sustainability 2021, 13(22), 12421; https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212421 - 10 Nov 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2789
Abstract
This paper discusses the relationship between green buildings and fire safety from a higher perspective including the traditional fire factors, fire resilience, sustainable building SAFR, social, ecological, and economic fields. There is no need to sacrifice fire safety in the name of sustainability. [...] Read more.
This paper discusses the relationship between green buildings and fire safety from a higher perspective including the traditional fire factors, fire resilience, sustainable building SAFR, social, ecological, and economic fields. There is no need to sacrifice fire safety in the name of sustainability. There is no direct report of fire incidents with green design elements. However, indirectly from the characteristics of residents, green buildings have a high degree of intersection with vulnerable groups, which directly affects the life safety of green building fires. The gray water recycling design of sustainable buildings (green buildings) combined with a simple waterway-connected sprinkler system will be an excellent cooperation example between green (Green Design) and red (Fire Safety). Taiwan’s photovoltaic development plan is expected to reach the 500 MW in 2025, which is equivalent to 2.5% of the government’s promotion target of 20 GW. Whether a PV fire occurs during the day or night, photovoltaic modules will generate lethal electricity, which is a potential hazard to first responders and rescue team. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fire Safety in Green and Sustainable Buildings)
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19 pages, 4470 KiB  
Article
Realization of People Density and Smoke Flow in Buildings during Fire Accidents Using Raspberry and OpenCV
by Gajanand S. Birajdar, Mohammed Baz, Rajesh Singh, Mamoon Rashid, Anita Gehlot, Shaik Vaseem Akram, Sultan S. Alshamrani and Ahmed Saeed AlGhamdi
Sustainability 2021, 13(19), 11082; https://doi.org/10.3390/su131911082 - 7 Oct 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2941
Abstract
Fire accidents in residential, commercial, and industrial environments are a major concern since they cause considerable infrastructure and human life damage. On other hand, the risk of fires is growing in conjunction with the growth of urban buildings. The existing techniques for detecting [...] Read more.
Fire accidents in residential, commercial, and industrial environments are a major concern since they cause considerable infrastructure and human life damage. On other hand, the risk of fires is growing in conjunction with the growth of urban buildings. The existing techniques for detecting fire through smoke sensors are difficult in large regions. Furthermore, during fire accidents, the visibility of the evacuation path is occupied with smoke and, thus, causes challenges for people evacuating individuals from the building. To overcome this challenge, we have recommended a vision-based fire detection system. A vision-based fire detection system is implemented to identify fire events as well as to count the number people inside the building. In this study, deep neural network (DNN) models, i.e., MobileNet SSD and ResNet101, are embedded in the vision node along with the Kinect sensor in order to detect fire accidents and further count the number of people inside the building. A web application is developed and integrated with the vision node through a local server for visualizing the real-time events in the building related to the fire and people counting. Finally, a real-time experiment is performed to check the accuracy of the proposed system for smoke detection and people density. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fire Safety in Green and Sustainable Buildings)
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20 pages, 8535 KiB  
Article
Investigation on the Effect of Platform Height on Smoke Characteristics of Fire Scenarios for Subway Stations
by Desheng Xu, Yanfeng Li, Junmei Li, Jin Zhang and Jiaxin Li
Sustainability 2021, 13(19), 10584; https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910584 - 24 Sep 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1868
Abstract
In this study, three full-scale experiments and a series of numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the influence of subway platform height and atrium ceiling height of subway stations on smoke control by mechanical exhausting systems. The smoke temperature variation with time, maximum [...] Read more.
In this study, three full-scale experiments and a series of numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the influence of subway platform height and atrium ceiling height of subway stations on smoke control by mechanical exhausting systems. The smoke temperature variation with time, maximum temperature distribution, and smoke stratification were discussed. Results showed that the atrium had capacity to store smoke, especially at the early stage of smoke spread. However, the efficiency of smoke extraction did not increase simply with the rise in platform height and atrium ceiling height, and favorable smoke exhaust velocity was crucial for smoke elimination. The optimal smoke exhaust velocity was studied by numerical simulation and it was found that the area of smoke diffusion in subway stations with a higher platform was significantly smaller under the optimal smoke exhaust velocity. In addition, a prediction model of optimal smoke exhaust velocity with subway platform height was proposed. This study could provide on-site data and smoke spread characteristics for smoke control design, operation, and, significantly, guide safety evacuation of the exhaust system of subway stations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fire Safety in Green and Sustainable Buildings)
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22 pages, 2445 KiB  
Article
Sustainable Smoke Extraction System for Atrium: A Numerical Study
by Martin Lyubomirov Ivanov, Wei Peng, Qi Wang and Wan Ki Chow
Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7406; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137406 - 1 Jul 2021
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 5408
Abstract
Smoke extraction systems, either static with natural ventilation, or dynamic with mechanical ventilation are required to keep smoke layer at high levels in many tall atria. It is observed that a design fire with high heat release rate (HRR) is commonly used for [...] Read more.
Smoke extraction systems, either static with natural ventilation, or dynamic with mechanical ventilation are required to keep smoke layer at high levels in many tall atria. It is observed that a design fire with high heat release rate (HRR) is commonly used for designing natural vents, but a low HRR is used for mechanical ventilation system. This will not produce a sustainable environment. There are no internationally agreed on design guides to determine the HRR in the design fire for different extraction systems and scenarios. This issue will be studied using a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)-based software, the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) version 6.7.1. Simulations on natural smoke filling, static and dynamic smoke extractions were carried out in a big example atrium. CFD-FDS predictions were compared with previous full-scale burning tests. Results confirmed that static smoke extraction is a good option for big fires, and a dynamic system is best for small fires. A sustainable new hybrid design combining the advantages of static and dynamic systems is proposed, which could result in a lower smoke temperature and higher smoke layer interface height, indicating a better extraction design. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fire Safety in Green and Sustainable Buildings)
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