Study of Flame and Smoke Propagation and Fire Safety in a Small Cinema Hall Using LES Fire and Evacuation Simulation

The present work aims to investigate flame and smoke propagation in a small cinema hall using Large Eddy Simulation (LES)-based fire dynamics simulation for different
scenarios and to study the evacuation schemes under these scenarios. The key aspects of fire dynamics, namely solid material pyrolysis, flame and smoke propagation, gas velocity and temperature distributions were studied. Especially, flame and smoke movement directions and their speeds were analyzed to suggest better evacuation plan to optimally mitigate fire hazards for human lives in real life conditions. Moreover, temperature rise throughout the hall was studied for possible detrimental effects on both humans and structures. Different fire locations were investigated and compared in terms of potential hazard and evacuation schemes. Without any safety measures, occupants need to use about 216 seconds to leave the cinema hall. After conducting the studies, the installation of fire alarm, fire sprinklers and smoke removing systems was suggested as an engineering hazard control. Moreover, some administrative hazard controls, such as preventing people from being in dangerous zone and
conducting after-action reviews can be taken as additional measures.