Analysis and improvement of stack effect for the staircase of apartments in fire accidents in Taiwan

Fires in buildings account for 60% of fires in Taiwan. Since establishment of the National Fire Agency in  1995, many fire codes have been promulgated resulting in a gradual decline in the number of casualties of fire. However, for old apartments in urban areas, although regulations aimed at improving fire-prevention refuge facilities and fire-fighting equipment of existing building have been announced, they cannot be implemented efficiently due to the lack of public acceptance. This investigation has found that hundreds of thousands people live in such buildings. However, the structure of many buildings is poor in terms of smoke control theorem. This investigation adopts smoke control theorem to examine the Stack Effect in apartment staircases, and seeks improvement. Such an approach is expected to benefit fire safety of the apartments.