OPTIMUM OPERATING FACILITY
PUBLIC ASSEMBLY
Whether your venue houses thousands of people for a rock concert, hosts major sporting events or provides a space for your congregation to worship, public assembly spaces present unique challenges for ventilation and life-safety requirements.
Engineered Air Balance has performed testing in many of these facilities and has even performed testing that has redefined the way that the engineering community designs life-safety smoke control systems for these unique buildings.
Our team understands the challenges present with the dynamic nature of the facility and the highly variable occupancy requirements. With integrity, quality, consistency and teamwork, we will work to deliver an optimum operating facility.
Smoke Control at the Alamodome
The Alamodome is a multi-purpose entertainment stadium with 65,000 seats, expandable to 72,000 seats, in San Antonio, Texas. Its distinctive design features a 9-acre roof hanging from four 100-foot masts. The arena can be set in 24 different set-up possibilities and has two Olympic-sized, permanent ice rinks that meet professional standards for hockey, figure skating and speed skating.
In preparation of the Alamodome’s opening in May of 1993, EAB was hired because of our specifically trained and equipped team of experts. In order to deliver an optimum operating facility, the temperature control system was tested while the facility was set up for football, basketball, hockey and concerts. EAB tested and balanced the HVAC systems, verified HVAC control point and sensor calibration and performed HVAC control sequence verification.
In addition to testing and balancing, EAB was exclusively requested for a special project to assess the smoke control system by building a fire, demonstrating to the fire marshal that in the event of an actual fire the occupants had sufficient time to exit before the smoke plume fell from the 170-foot-high ceiling to the seating area. EAB built a controlled 10-megawatt fire with an equal amount of smoke. EAB led the project team, hired a smoke control consultant to assist with the implementation of the fire and smoke, and hired a research team to analyze the data trends by measuring the temperature of the rising smoke plume and the temperature spread across the roof.
Our beneficial findings were used by NFPA and the ASHRAE technical committee for smoke control system design to revise the mathematical models for all large-volume public assembly spaces, impacting the design of large smoke control systems for years to come.
Smoke Control at the Alamodome
The Alamodome is a multi-purpose entertainment stadium with 65,000 seats, expandable to 72,000 seats, in San Antonio, Texas. Its distinctive design features a 9-acre roof hanging from four 100-foot masts. The arena can be set in 24 different set-up possibilities and has two Olympic-sized, permanent ice rinks that meet professional standards for hockey, figure skating and speed skating.
In preparation of the Alamodome’s opening in May of 1993, EAB was hired because of our specifically trained and equipped team of experts. In order to deliver an optimum operating facility, the temperature control system was tested while the facility was set up for football, basketball, hockey and concerts. EAB tested and balanced the HVAC systems, verified HVAC control point and sensor calibration and performed HVAC control sequence verification.
In addition to testing and balancing, EAB was exclusively requested for a special project to assess the smoke control system by building a fire, demonstrating to the fire marshal that in the event of an actual fire the occupants had sufficient time to exit before the smoke plume fell from the 170-foot-high ceiling to the seating area. EAB built a controlled 10-megawatt fire with an equal amount of smoke. EAB led the project team, hired a smoke control consultant to assist with the implementation of the fire and smoke, and hired a research team to analyze the data trends by measuring the temperature of the rising smoke plume and the temperature spread across the roof.
Our beneficial findings were used by NFPA and the ASHRAE technical committee for smoke control system design to revise the mathematical models for all large-volume public assembly spaces, impacting the design of large smoke control systems for years to come.