PLUMBING

SYSTEM
DESIGN
Tall Building
Drainage
Society of Public Health
Engineers
4th October 2011

PETER WHITE
PRINCIPAL
HOARE LEA PUBLIC
HEALTH GROUP
CONTENTS
Dispelling Some Common Drainage Misconceptions

What Makes Tall Building Drainage Different?

Design Guidance And How Applicable Is It To Tall Buildings?

Latest Research

Control of Soil Stack Pressure Using Mechanical Devices

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS
Annular flow

Fully developed within 3-5m of

point of entry

Terminal velocity of 3-5 m/s

Water velocity at base

unchanged between 3 and 100
storey building

No requirement for velocity

breaks
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS
Problems can occur at the base
of a stack or at a change of
direction, resulting in blown
trap seals

This is due to increasing air

pressure, not increasing water
velocity
GENERAL DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Pressure falls below atmospheric
immediately below top of stack

Negative pressure increases down

stack due to friction

Further pressure drops where stack is

restricted by branch flows

Below the lowest discharging branch

pressure gradually increases

Pressure increases above atmospheric

at base & can blow out water seals
GENERAL DESIGN PRINCIPLES
The key issue is controlling air pressure, not controlling water
velocity

Foul air is kept within the system via water seal traps, which are
very sensitive to pressure changes

When water is discharged, air is entrained at 8-15 times that

volume

The taller the building, the further the fresh air has to travel and
the resistances generated result in increasing negative pressure

Surcharge will result in large positive pressure transients

DESIGN ISSUES FOR TALL BUILDINGS

For large buildings the traditional method

of controlling pressure fluctuation is the
secondary ventilating stack

BS EN 12056:2 states:
- 100 SVP + 50 VP; Qmax = 7.3 l/s
- 150 SVP + 80 VP; Qmax = 18.3 l/s
- 200 SVP + 100 VP; Qmax = 27.3 l/s

BS makes no reference to maximum

length of vent
DESIGN ISSUES FOR TALL BUILDINGS

HEIGHT OF VENT versus Qmax

As the number of storeys increase, Qmax is likely to increase
As Qmax increases the volume of entrained air increases
As the number of storeys increase, the vent pipe length
increases, so the negative pressure increases
Vent pipes must be correctly sized to reflect building height &
Qmax of connected applications
DESIGN ISSUES FOR TALL BUILDINGS
AVAILABILITY & SUITABILITY OF DESIGN GUIDANCE

Current BS makes no reference to building height

Superseded BS 5572:1994 suggested that a 30 storey

residential block with a 150 SVP & 32 VP has a Qmax of 8.3 l/s

This is less than half the current BS figure of 18.3 l/s (but with
no height limit)
DESIGN ISSUES FOR TALL BUILDINGS
AVAILABILITY & SUITABILITY OF DESIGN GUIDANCE
The Americans have been
constructing skyscrapers for more
than a century

American Society of Plumbing Engineers (ASPE) publishes a

design table that relates Qmax to vent pipe size and maximum
length
DESIGN ISSUES FOR TALL BUILDINGS

For the same 30 storey

scenario as the 5572/12056
contradiction discussed
earlier, US designers are
directed to a 152mm soil
pipe and a127mm vent.
DESIGN ISSUES FOR TALL BUILDINGS

All code guidance is based upon the translation

of steady state empirical data into safe design
guidelines

There is no transparency as to how safe was

judged

The current BS is not robust enough for tall

buildings due to lack of reference to vent length

US guidance addresses vent length but is very

conservative
DESIGN ISSUES FOR TALL BUILDINGS
In 2005, Hoare Lea was
commissioned to design the 48 -
storey Pan Peninsula project in
London Docklands
Our design response to the various
design guidance available for tall
buildings was to develop a BS/ASPE
hybrid
To verify the venting of this design
we approached Heriot-Watt
University to use their AIRNET
computer simulation to model a
typical stack
LATEST RESEARCH - DESIGN TOOLS OF THE
FUTURE? A BACKGROUND TO AIRNET

AIRNET is a Heriot-Watt University research tool which

came to wider attention when it was used to investigate the
SARS outbreak at Amoy Gardens in 2003

Existing codes are based on steady state flow, but the reality
of a drainage system is that the flows are inherently unsteady
and flow rate, annular downflow thickness, entrained airflow
and suction pressure all vary with time

AIRNET simulates the behaviour of a drainage system over a

predetermined period of time, so it simulates unsteady state
flow
LATEST RESEARCH - DESIGN TOOLS OF THE
FUTURE? A BACKGROUND TO AIRNET

AIRNET models the passive and

active boundary conditions in a
method of characteristics (MoC)
simulation

AIRNET takes these boundary

conditions and the driving
functions which determine
entrained airflow and together
with data entry to describe
the system and the connected
appliances, simulates the
system behaviour
LATEST RESEARCH - DESIGN TOOLS OF THE
FUTURE? A BACKGROUND TO AIRNET
LATEST RESEARCH - DESIGN TOOLS OF THE
FUTURE? A BACKGROUND TO AIRNET
AIRNET is an
academic
research tool; it
is not very user
friendly
AIRNET could
be developed
and distributed
as a design
software package

AIRNET has already been used to develop the control of stack

pressures using mechanical devices in place of secondary vents
CONTROL OF STACK PRESSURES USING
MECHANICAL DEVICES
CONTROL OF STACK PRESSURES USING
MECHANICAL DEVICES

Synthetic rubber bladder

200mm diameter by 750mm long

vented containment vessel

Self-priming bladder
evacuated by negative
pressure of entrained airflow

Positive pressure transient

begins journey back up the
stack
Bladder begins to expand and branch
becomes path of least resistance.
Fully inflates in 0.2 sec
CONTROL OF STACK PRESSURES USING
MECHANICAL DEVICES
Air admittance valves
allow air to be
entrained at the point
of need (PON)

Positive air pressure

attenuators (PAPA) act as
simple air accumulators to
absorb excess air at PON
CONTROL OF STACK PRESSURES USING
MECHANICAL DEVICES
CONTROL OF STACK PRESSURES USING
MECHANICAL DEVICES
CONTROL OF STACK PRESSURES USING
MECHANICAL DEVICES IS THE UK READY?

Current UK code of practice does not recognise the

use of PAPAs

The PAPA is not BBA approved

Current BBA certification of AAVs limits them to

maximum 10 storey building

The Studor AS/NZS PAPA design guidance is very broad

brush AIRNET modelling would be far better

Public Health Engineers have always been wary of

incorporating mechanical devices into drainage systems
PLUMBING SYSTEM DESIGN
A focus on drainage

Thank You

peterwhite@hoarelea.com