CASE STUDY: SOUND-RATED SMOKE VENTS AT HALE CENTRE THEATRE

The design team of the Hale Centre Theatre in Sandy City, Utah, incorporated 20 acoustical smoke vents into the roof to effectively manage noise from air traffic.

The Hale Centre Theatre in Sandy City, Utah, balances safety and sound isolation with 20 acoustical smoke vents in the roof, simultaneously guarding against noise intrusion and providing the security of automatic smoke venting.

The 122,300-square-foot, $80-million theatre officially opened on September 1, 2017. The facility includes a stunning grand lobby, generous backstage areas, state-of-the-art sound and lighting, and a rotating stage that was considered the first-of-its-kind in automation. Designed by TAIT Towers, the stage features 47 pieces of moving machinery powered by 130 motors. Two overhead crane trolleys with eight hoists are capable of moving 16 individual pieces or performers during a production. TAIT Towers has said there is no live performing arts venue anywhere in the world with as much cutting-edge technology.

While the TAIT Towers team outfitted the stage to deliver a sophisticated performance, the design team, led by Lyle Beecher, AIA, CEO of Beecher Walker Architects, worked to create a venue that offered attendees an immersive performance environment. “Air traffic was a big consideration for us,” Beecher says. “The smoke vents are the only thing stopping the noise from coming in at the loading level on the outside, and the sound level had been pretty intense.”

The Benefits of Automatic Smoke Vents

Automatic smoke vents are often incorporated in large, single-story, undivided buildings and other types of spaces where they are not required by code. Many architects, engineers, fire authorities, and insurance carriers agree that specifying automatic smoke vents for modern industrial and commercial structures offers significant benefits and dramatically improves outcomes as they relate to the protection of lives and property in the event of a fire. By simply opening a vent door in the roof, automatic smoke vents enable a building’s fire response to better protect the property in a building and the lives of the people and firefighters inside it.

Better Protection for People and Firefighters

These devices remove smoke, heat, and gases from a burning building, which helps people and firefighters move more securely through the compromised interior. People in the building have more time to safely exit the premises and, with less smoke trapped in the structure, the risk of smoke inhalation is decreased. Smoke inhalation is recognized as the number-one cause of death related to fires. This reduction in the amount of smoke inside the building also improves the visibility that firefighters have of the interior once they arrive on the scene. Being able to see the emergency more clearly enables emergency crews to more quickly locate the fire, formulate a plan, and begin fighting it.

When smoke vents open, releasing smoke and hot gases trapped inside, visibility improves for firefighters, enabling them to more quickly locate the fire.

Fires also release dangerous gases into the air, including carbon monoxide, which is lethal. Smoke from fires often contains a whole host of other toxic threats like hydrogen cyanide and inorganic acids. Exposure to these toxicants can be the principal cause of death found in victims that succumb to these events. During fires, potentially explosive fumes can also be released. Automatic smoke vents remove noxious and potentially explosive gases from the area, making the burning environment safe for people and firefighters to travel through it.

Better Protection for Property

Smoke vent solutions also offer improved protection for the building structure and the property it contains. When correctly implemented, the venting strategy protects against secondary ignitions and lateral fire spread, protects the structure from damaging heat, and reduces the total amount of damage that occurs. Let us take a closer look at how vents on the roof can make such a difference.

When fires start, a smoke plume of hot gases and smoke rises directly above the area of combustion until it hits the ceiling. Unable to break through the ceiling plane, the hot gases and combustion products spread out horizontally under the ceiling surface, quickly reaching areas of the building that are removed from the immediate location of the fire. As the fire continues to burn, more smoke and hot gases rise to the ceiling. The layer of hot gas and smoke at the ceiling thickens and gets hotter. The intense heat building at the ceiling will eventually begin to weaken the structure, increasing the potential danger to the people and firemen on the scene and the amount of damage caused by the fire. Automatic smoke vents slow the buildup of these hot gases at the ceiling and can even reverse it, protecting the structure from the damaging levels of heat that can be produced.

The vents also help to prevent lateral spread by allowing the smoke and gases to exit the building near where they impact the ceiling, instead of spreading out, trapped underneath the ceiling plane. Keeping the fire, smoke, and heat from spreading reduces the opportunities for secondary ignitions and helps to keep sprinklers from activating that are not in the immediate area of the fire. This reduces the unnecessary water damage to property and contents not directly involved in the fire.

Conclusion

Automatic smoke vents are an effective solution for mitigating a great deal of the danger and destruction that could occur during a fire event. These life-safety devices are also capable of mitigating exterior noise and creating an interior environment that sounds great under normal circumstances. Look for sound-rated smoke vents to provide the code-mandated safety equipment without compromising the sound performance of the roof.