Smartfire: an Intelligent Cfd Based Fire Model

Abstract

This paper describes a project aimed at making Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)- based fire simulation accessible to members of the fire safety engineering community. Over the past few years, the practice of CFD-based fire simulation has begun the transition from the confines of the research laboratory to the desk of the fire safety engineer. To a certain extent, this move has been driven by the demands of performance based building codes. However, while CFD modeling has many benefits over other forms of fire simulation, it requires a great deal of expertise on the user's part to obtain reasonable simulation results. The project described in this paper, SMARTFIRE, aims to relieve some of this dependence on expertise so that users are less concerned with the details of CFD analysis and can concentrate on results. This aim is achieved by the use of an expert system component as part of the software suite which takes some of the expertise burden away from the user. SMARTFIRE also makes use of the latest developments in CFD technology in order to make the CFD analysis more efficient. This paper describes design considera tions of the SMARTFIRE software, emphasizing its open architecture, CFD engine and knowledge-based systems.

Predicting HCl concentrations in fire enclosures using an HCl decay model coupled to a CFD‐based fire field model

“…A similar model for HBr or HCN may be developed if necessary experimental data are available. For species such as HCN with weak absorption dependence on humidity [14], the calculation of the partition (gas/wall equilibrium) coefficient may be more straightforward than that presented in Equation (3 …”

“…The SMARTFIRE system has been described in previous publications [3,4,20,21], and so only a brief outline is presented here. The CFD engine used in the software has many additional physics features that are required for fire field modelling.…”

“…HCl is one of the most important toxicant in fires. Recently, coupled evacuation [1], Fractional Effective Dose [2] and fire [3,4] simulations of a hypothetical PVC cable fire within a single storey building [5] suggested that HCl may have been a significant contributor to the predicted fatalities in this fire scenario. Unlike other toxic gases produced within enclosure fires, such as CO, the concentration of HCl in the fire effluent decreases rapidly due to absorption by wall surfaces.…”

Predicting toxic gas concentrations at locations remote from the fire source

“…The modified methodology for the prediction of toxic gas species described above has been implemented within the CFD fire model [21,22] heat source representation and the EDM combustion model and is summarized as follows:…”

“…The basic CFD framework used in this study is the SMARTFIRE software [21][22][23][24][25]. In fire field modelling, the fluid is governed by a set of three-dimensional partial differential equations.…”