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COLT'S NEW EXTENDED CORRIDOR SYSTEM - SAVING SPACE, COSTS AND POTENTIALLY LIVES
4 January 2007 back to news home
Colt International has developed a new Extended Corridor System for means-of-escape corridors in residential buildings. Compared with conventional Automated Opening Vent (AOV) corridors, this system offers developers substantial space and cost saving benefits, while providing a safe evacuation route, with increased smoke extraction. Colt's Extended Corridor System also aids fire fighters by rapidly clearing smoke during the later stages of a fire.
With local authority approval, the first Extended Corridor System is currently being installed in a residential building at the Angel Meadows development in Manchester. By extending the escape distance in the corridor from 7.5m to 18.0m in one direction, the system has made it possible to omit one staircase, gaining useable space and saving building costs. Read an article on this project reproduced from "Fire Safety Engineering" (October 2007).
Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) models show Colt's Extended Corridor System will out perform the smoke clearing capabilities of conventional dead-end corridors that are compliant with Approved Document B. This document refers to corridors limited to an escape distance of 7.5 metres or less, relying on Automated Opening Vents (AOV) of 1.5m² free area for smoke evacuation.
Colt has achieved this exceptional smoke extraction performance by offering both a corridor extraction system at one end of the corridor and a dedicated air inlet system at the other. Inlet air prevents the corridor from becoming excessively depressurised, which could make it difficult for evacuees and fire fighters to open doors, as well as causing extract fans to stall, resulting in total system failure.
Simon O'Hea, marketing director of Colt International, commented: "We expect plenty of interest in the Extended Corridor System, principally because of the great space and cost savings it provides developers. However, this does not mean a compromise in safety; its excellent smoke-extraction technology will also save lives."
Colt's engineers first conceived the Extended Corridor System's mechanical ventilation system when developing and testing the Colt Shaft - a ventilating fire-fighting shaft that reduces spatial requirements by 80 percent, compared to other systems. As with the Colt Shaft, the Extended Corridor System enables developers of apartments, hotels and office buildings to increase saleable space while maximising safety, potentially saving lives.
CFD test results:
The CFD model showed AOV maintained corridors removed an acceptable layer of smoke when the occupants evacuated the building in the early stages of the fire and shut the door after them, but was very slow at clearing the residual smoke, even in zero-wind conditions. With positive-wind conditions, smoke in the AOV-dependent corridor would be much worse, whereas the Extended Corridor System is unaffected by wind.
When the apartment door was opened with a fire that had grown much larger (in excess of 4.5MW), the conventional corridor was almost completely smoke-logged in approximately ten seconds with the AOV systems overwhelmed and incapable of providing appreciable benefits to fire fighters at the scene. With the Extended Corridor System, however, the corridor was almost completely cleared of smoke within 45 seconds of the apartment door closing, despite the fact that the extended corridor was more than twice as long. At earlier stages of the computer-simulated fire, the Extended Corridor System cleared the extended corridor of smoke completely in even less time.
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