Smoke control and fire evacuation by elevators

In recent years, the possibility of using elevators as a means of fire escape has received considerable attention. This interest has been sparked by an increased awareness of life safety problems of the handicapped and also general fire evacuation problems of high-rise buildings. The use of elevators as a means of fire evacuation is a potential solution to this problem. The major technical obstacle to this is smoke contamination of elevator lobbies and shafts. This paper discusses elevator smoke control systems including criteria for evaluation and presents an analysis of airflow due to elevator car motion. Computer analysis of several elevator smoke control systems are included for several combinations of open and closed doors and for summer and winter conditions.