CH-85-17-2 -- Field Tests of the Smoke Control System at the Bay Pines VA Hospital PDF

The Veterans Administration (VA) has sponsored a project at the Center for Fire Research of the National Bureau of Standards to study smoke control in VA hospitals and to develop new design approaches and methods of acceptance testing. This paper is the first report of this project, and it presents the results of a field test on the VA Bay Pines Hospital. In general, the smoke control systems at this hospital performed well; however, there were some problems. These problems are discussed along with specific recommendations for their correction and general recommendations to prevent similar problems in future hospitals. It was observed that the double egress doors in the hospital acted in a manner similar to barometric dampers to limit pressure differences.