In this study, new design fire curves were suggested for the utilization in fire simulations. Numerical simulations with the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) were performed for the n-octane and n-heptane pool fires in the ISO 9705 compartment to evaluate the prediction performance of the previous quadratic, exponential design fire curves and newly suggested ones. The numerical results were compared with the experimental temperature and concentrations of O2 and CO2. The numerical results with the previous quadratic and exponential curves showed slow increase and decrease trend than experiments. However, the numerical results with the newly suggested 2 design fire curves showed more similar variation trend in temperature, O2 and CO2 concentrations than the quadratic and exponential curves. It was found that the newly suggested design fire curves can be possibly used in the numerical simulation of fires in a practical respect.

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The present study has been conducted to analyse the effects of various pool diameters on the measurement of heat release rate (HRR) of heptane fire using large scale cone calorimeter (LSC). The burning rate which is the major parameter for HRR compared with the previous model suggested by A. Hamins. The combustion efficiency for heptane by oxygen consumption method is about 91%, which is almost same with the previous results of 92% suggested by J. Gore. The convective HRR by enthalpy consumption method was 54% lower than HRR by oxygen consumption method. This results are practical use for establishing the reliability of heat release rate for fire experiment.

As a preliminary study to evaluate the reliability of the calculation method of fire load for residential furniture combustibles, the present study estimates the fire load considering the volume data obtained by the 3D geometrical information of combustibles and material properties based on the literature survey and sample burning test. A kitchen sink cabinet, couch and workstation were investigated for estimating its fire load and real fire test have been performed to measure total energy released from the combustibles. Based on total energy measured from real fire test, the relative error of the estimated fire load due to literature survey and measured material properties showed 6~120% and less than 20%, respectively. It shows that the estimation error of fire load are greatly affected by its material properties as well as geometrical information of combustibles and the present study will be able to contribute to accurate estimation of fire load.