Design of smoke exhaust system for large and tall space in an overseas project under US standard NFPA system

The NFPA standard, as one of the predominant American standard systems, is widely adopted in overseas construction projects. Taking the large and tall space of an overseas hotel as a case study, the study of this paper shows that the smoke exhaust volume derived from the algebraic method in NFPA standards fails to meet personnel evacuation requirements for large and tall spaces. When employing mechanical smoke exhaust systems, the smoke exhaust volume needs to be increased by 33.5% beyond the algebraic method calculation. For natural smoke exhaust skylights, the required skylight area must be expanded by approximately 438% to meet evacuation requirements. Compared with the smoke exhaust volume of the large and tall space stipulated in the Chinese national standard GB 51251-2017Technicalstandardforsmokemanagementsystemsinbuildings, the aforementioned mechanical smoke volume is reduced by 31.9%. The natural smoke exhaust skylight area is decreased by 49.5% compared with the calculated value of the skylight area of the large and tall space in GB 51251-2017Technicalstandardforsmokemanagementsystemsinbuildings.