Fire Experiments and Simulations in a Full-scale Atrium Under Transient and Asymmetric Venting Conditions

Abstract

Abstract. An experimental and numerical comparison of new full-scale atrium fire tests in the 20 m cubic atrium with four different heat release rates (1.7 MW, 2.3 MW, 3.9 MW and 5.3 MW) is presented. Different exhaust conditions (steady and transient extraction rates) and different make-up air configurations (symmetric and asymmetric) are assessed. Temperature measurements in the near (fire plume) and far field (close to the walls) have been recorded by means of 59 thermocouples. The smoke layer interface is also estimated by means of a thermocouple tree with 28 measurements using the least-square and the n-percent methods. The simulations have been conducted using FDS (version 6, Release Candidate 3). The comparison with the simulations shows average discrepancies lower than 32% and 11%, for the near and far field temperatures, respectively. A discrepancy lower than 5% (1 m) is obtained by both methods for the smoke layer height when the steady state is reached. Finally, a slower response to an increment on the exhaust rate is predicted on the smoke layer, being more perceptible for high heat release rates.

Review and Validation of the Current Smoke Plume Entrainment Models for Large-Volume Buildings

“…The aim of this paper is to compare the commonly used plume models (Section 2) with two sets of large-scale experiments [46,47] performed in the Fire Atrium of the Centro Tecnológico del Metal (CTM) facility in Murcia, Spain. A description of the facility and experiments is shown in Section 3, whilst results and discussion are shown in Sections 4-5.…”

“…The smoke layer interface was determined using the Least Square Method through the thermocouple tree place in the atrium as part of the instrumentation [47,69]. A summary of the experimental data utilized in this analysis can be found in the table 5.…”

“…This allowed for more detailed analysis of the transient phase of the smoke layer evolution in the atrium. Another improvement over the first series was the use of least-squares method for the definition of the layer boundary with discussion on this choice presented in [47]. The fires used in the experiments and the exhaust ventilation rates were comparable with these in series one.…”

Assessing fire safety using complex numerical models with a Bayesian multi-fidelity approach

“…These simulators, such as Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) or Open Field Operation And Manipulation (OpenFOAM), can be used to test various fire scenarios, which would be too difficult or impossible to test using real experiments [1]. However, they are usually very time-consuming, which limits the number of numerical experiments that can be afforded.…”

Special Issue on Fire Model Validation

“…Even when the fire source is specified, as is the case in many design fire scenarios, the compartment ventilation controls the heat release rate and thus has a zeroth-order effect on the model results. An example of model validation with careful consideration of compartment ventilation is given by Ayala et al in their article, ''Fire experiments and simulations in a full-scale atrium under transient and asymmetric venting conditions'' [7].…”