Conflict Investigation between Thermal Comfort and Fire Safety in Naturally Ventilated Building Located in Tropical and Hot Climate.

Safety performance is one of the most important considerations in building design. Moreover, new environmental building design allows construction to have a sustainable relationship with the outdoor climate, especially in tropical context. This paper aims at evaluating how conception that allows natural ventilation by mean of passive strategies, affects fire safety performance in buildings. A methodology, combining safety and comfort through a global index, is proposed in order to understand how the consideration of fire safety can affect initial passive design. The use of dynamic thermal simulation associated with fire simulation gives the opportunity to quantify fire performance annually. Sensitivity analysis is performed by using delta moment index. This allows to evaluate the absolute impact of input parameter on both fire safety and thermal comfort outputs. A refined study is then performed by the use of conditional output distribution. It takes into account the relative importance given to fire Safety or thermal comfort concerns. The strong dependence of fire safety, in terms of smoke extraction, on weather conditions, building orientation, occupation profiles and seasons, is demonstrated in naturally ventilated buildings.