A Physically-Based Model for Urban Fire Spread

Himoto, Keisuke; Tanaka, Takeyoshi

doi:10.3801/iafss.fss.7-129

Cited by 28 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…So the purpose of this study is to develop a quantitative model for urban fire spread, with the physics-based knowledge of the phenomena, to explore effective solutions to the above problem. A number of attempts have been made for the identical purpose in the last few years [13,14]. This paper rearranged the recent development of the author's model and carried out a number of simulations for the model verification.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and validation of a physics-based urban fire spread model

Himoto¹,

Tanaka²

2008

Fire Safety Journal

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A computational model for fire spread in a densely built urban area is developed. The model is distinct from existing models in that it explicitly describes fire spread phenomena with physics-based knowledge achieved in the field of fire safety engineering. In the model, urban fire is interpreted as an ensemble of multiple building fires; that is, the fire spread is simulated by predicting behaviors of individual building fires under the thermal influence of neighboring building fires. Adopted numerical technique for the prediction of individual building fire behavior is based on the one-layer zone model. Governing equations of mass, energy, and chemical species in component rooms are solved simultaneously, for the development of temperature, concentrations of chemical species, and other properties. As for the building-to-building fire spread, three mechanisms are considered as contributing factors of fire spread, i.e., (I) thermal radiation from fire-involved buildings; (II) temperature rise due to wind-blown fire plumes; and (III) firebrand spotting. As for the model verification, fire spread simulations were carried out in a hypothetical urban area, where 2500 buildings of identical configuration were aligned at constant separations. Calculated fire spread rates were then compared with that of the Hamada model, and reasonable agreements were obtained. The model was further verified with the record of a past urban fire, which took place in the city of Sakata in 1976. Although the general features of the fire spread were similar, there were certain discrepancies in the eventual burnt area. The reasons for these discrepancies were discussed and issues for future refinements were stated. r

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and validation of a physics-based urban fire spread model

Himoto¹,

Tanaka²

2008

Fire Safety Journal

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“…3). To simplify the model, the ignition building is seen as an integrated part, and after the ignition sources of the windows and exterior wall radiation are converted, the radiation intensity transmitted by the ignition building may be calculated as (Himoto and Tanaka, 2002) …”

Section: Model For Multi-objective Fire Spread Among Buildingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When a building receives heat radiation via its exterior walls, the intensity of the heat radiation it receives is calculated as (Himoto and Tanaka, 2002) …”

Section: Model For Multi-objective Fire Spread Among Buildingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fire spread simulation using GIS: Aiming at urban natural gas pipeline

Cheng

et al. 2015

Safety Science

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“…However, since their models were all formulated on historically data, some empirically statistical parameters were inevitably involved, which may lose validity through time as the conditions of urban environment, such as fire protection performance of individual buildings or urban structure in general, may change dramatically. Recently, Himoto and Tanaka [7][8][9], and Lee and Davidson [10] developed the physically based fire-spread models, but their models are so complicated in calculation that it is unsuitable for rapid simulation of fire-spread in large 722…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulation of Mass Fire-Spread in Urban Densely Built Areas Based on Irregular Coarse Cellular Automata

Zhao

2010

Fire Technol

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Mass fire-spread is a potential threat to some densely built urban areas by its devastating destructions. Especially in case of a large earthquake when multiple fires break out simultaneously, fire-spread hazard is likely to overwhelm fire-fighting capabilities and enlarge damage area. To explore fire-spread behavior and assess its damages, a simulation model of fire-spread in densely built urban areas is developed. Cellular Automata (CA) is a Bottom-up dynamics model that can reproduce a complicated phenomenon by setting up simple rules in a cell space. However, the traditional grid-based cells of CA are not suitable for modeling building-to-building fire-spread behavior. Therefore, an irregular coarse CA schema is proposed in this paper. Two sub-processes are involved urban mass fire-spread, i.e. (I) fire-developing in a single building and (II) fire-spread among buildings. When a fire is developing in a single building, the building will experience 5 fire stages along time, which become the states of cell. While fire spreads among buildings, there are 2 spread patterns: (I) short-range direct flame contact, radiation and convection spread and (II) long-range firebrand spotting spread. In relation to the 2 spread patterns, 2 sets of neighborhoods and rules of CA are formulated respectively. To verify the newly developed model, 100 times of individual random simulations for a real site fire-spread in Kobe City after Hanshin Earthquake (1995, Japan) are performed using an integrated GIS-CA-fire tool developed in the paper. Comparing the simulation results with the local observations, the general feature of fire-spread is found similar, and it is proved that the newly developed model is reliable to simulate urban fire-spread. Furthermore, based on the simulated results, a loss assessment model is formulated to calculate economic and life losses after fire-spread.

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A Physically-Based Model for Urban Fire Spread

Cited by 28 publications

References 6 publications

Development and validation of a physics-based urban fire spread model

Development and validation of a physics-based urban fire spread model

Fire spread simulation using GIS: Aiming at urban natural gas pipeline

Simulation of Mass Fire-Spread in Urban Densely Built Areas Based on Irregular Coarse Cellular Automata

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