Pressure variations induced by a pool fire in a well-confined and force-ventilated compartment

Prétrel, Hugues; Saux, W. Le; Audouin, L.

doi:10.1016/j.firesaf.2012.04.005

Cited by 49 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…More recently, the experiments within the OECD PRISME programme [4] have produced detailed information about the development of compartment pressure, ventilation flows and liquid pool fire dynamics in a very air-tight compartment, reported in numerous articles [5][6][7][8]. Pre´trel et al [5,6] investigated the influence of the enclosure airtightness on pressure using experiments and theoretical analysis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Experiments and Numerical Simulations of Pressure Effects in Apartment Fires

Janardhan

Hostikka

2016

Fire Technol

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Abstract. The fire induced pressure and its influence on ventilation flows within a compartment have not been studied in detail previously. In this research work, we have investigated the development of gas pressure and the resulting flows in compartment fires first experimentally, by burning a series of heptane pool and polyurethane mattress fires inside a real, 58.6 m 2 by 2.57 m high, apartment and then by carrying out numerical simulations of the experiments with the FDS code. The experiments were conducted with three different ventilation duct configurations to simulate three different airtightness conditions. The peak heat release rates were less than 1 MW and the burning times were about 180 s. The experimental results indicate that the gas pressure in relatively closed apartment can become high enough to revert the flows of the ventilation system, prevent escape through inwards-opening doors, and even break some structures. The peak gas temperatures under the ceiling of the burn room were about 300°C. The pool fires remained well-ventilated. The pressure ranges encountered in the experiments were between 100 Pa to 1650 Pa and the pressure occured within 50 s of ignition. We also report the FDS validation for this type of simulations and discuss the process of modelling the ventilation system and leakages.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pre´trel et al [5,6] investigated the influence of the enclosure airtightness on pressure using experiments and theoretical analysis. They found that closing the ventilation paths, and exhaust ducts in particular, during the fire increased the pressure significantly.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experiments and Numerical Simulations of Pressure Effects in Apartment Fires

Janardhan

Hostikka

2016

Fire Technol

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“…Several aspects of the fire dynamics (e.g., mechanisms inducing pressure peaks at ignition and extinction) for different scenarios of interest have been extensively studied both experimentally and numerically (e.g., (Prétrel et al, 2005), , (Prétrel et al, 2012), (Lapuerta et al, 2012), (Bonte et al, 2013), (Wahlqvist and van Hees, 2013), (Pelzer and Klein-Hessling, 2013)). However, pressure and burning rate instabilities have been only experimentally reported and analysed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blind Simulation of Periodic Pressure and Burning Rate Instabilities in the Event of a Pool Fire in a Confined and Mechanically Ventilated Compartment

Beji

Merci

2016

Combustion Science and Technology

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Fire dynamics in a well-confined and mechanically ventilated enclosure (a configuration of interest to the nuclear industry) strongly depends on the interaction between the fuel burning rates and the intake and exhaust volume flow rates (delivered by the fans). Several experiments show that, in the under-ventilated regime, an oscillatory behaviour may be established with frequencies in the order of few mHz. This paper reports one of the first comprehensive numerical analyses performed in order to study periodic pressure and burning 1 rate instabilities for the case of a full-scale heptane pool fire, for which experimental data has not been published yet. In the numerical analysis, carried out with the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), periodic pressure and burning rate instabilities were predicted with a frequency of approximately 10 mHz. The analysis shows evidence of the correlation between the variation of ventilation flow rates (due to pressure instabilities) and the burning rate oscillations. The latter oscillations are directly linked to oscillations in the fuel burning area attributed to the ventilation-controlled conditions.

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“…These effects are quantified and examined in terms of induced MLRs (and subsequent HRRs) [5][6][7], room pressure variations and changing ventilation flow rates for several initial renewal rates (i.e. volumetric flow rates divided by the volume of the enclosure) [8]. Other pressure-related effects such as leakages were also addressed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this work we have chosen to address and focus on the issue of the interaction of the ventilation network with the fire-induced pressure build-up in a confined facility. This is typically encountered in the nuclear industry where the ventilation network ensures, in normal operating conditions, dynamic confinement in order to contain the potential release of radioactive material and avoid dispersion to the outside [8]. The analysis of experimental data [8] has shown that, in the event of a fire, overpressures of more than 2500 Pa can occur within the fire room in conjunction with a substantial change in the operating conditions of the ventilation network.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical Simulations of a Mechanically-Ventilated Multi- Compartment Fire

Beji¹,

Bonte²,

Merci³

2014

Fire Saf. Sci.

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The objective of this work was to evaluate the capabilities of a widely used Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code in the fire community, namely the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS 5.5.3), in the simulation of a large-scale, well-confined and mechanically ventilated multi-room fire scenario. The CFD analysis focuses on the effect of pressure build-up induced by the fire on the ventilation network. The measured heat release rate (HRR) was therefore prescribed as input in the simulations. Computational results were compared to measurements obtained for one of several experimental scenarios performed at the French Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN). The overall trend was well reproduced by FDS. Quantitative comparisons for respectively the total relative pressure, ventilation flow rates and gas temperature (in the fire room) at the steady-state combustion regime have shown underestimations of 18 to 22 %. KEYWORDS

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Pressure variations induced by a pool fire in a well-confined and force-ventilated compartment

Cited by 49 publications

References 10 publications

Experiments and Numerical Simulations of Pressure Effects in Apartment Fires

Experiments and Numerical Simulations of Pressure Effects in Apartment Fires

Blind Simulation of Periodic Pressure and Burning Rate Instabilities in the Event of a Pool Fire in a Confined and Mechanically Ventilated Compartment

Numerical Simulations of a Mechanically-Ventilated Multi- Compartment Fire

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