The Effect of Fuel Quantity and Location on Small Enclosure Fires

Abstract

Results from an experimental program undertaken to study the effect of fuel quantity and location on ethanol pool fires in the open and in a small enclosure (an ISO 9705 room) are compared with simulations using the Fire Dynamics Simulator version 4.03 (FDS4). The fuel in trays is placed at three locations (front, back, and center) within the room enclosure as well as directly under the calorimeter hood. The measured heat release rate (HRR) is found to vary substantially when a fuel package consisting of different quantities of ethanol is placed at different locations within the room. Instead of prescribing this HRR into the FDS simulation, these experimental results are compared with HRR predictions obtained using the FDS4 combustion model. The comparison reveals that there are significant and variable differences between the experimental results and the FDS4 predictions in contrast to simulations where the HRR is prescribed.KEY WORDS: burning rate, heat release rate, pool fire, ISO 9705 room, fuel location, grid size.

Experimental Study on the Burning Behavior of Pool Fires in Rooms with Different Wall Linings

“…This observations compares well with the test results obtained by Thomas et al [6] and Parkes [8] as in some of their experiments the free burn HRRs were larger than the room burn HRR. Mass loss rates found in the free burn tests and the predicted MLRs from Table 1 are compared in Table 6.…”

“…By isolating different parameters the models have listed the aspect ratio [12], the thermal inertia of lining [13,14] and the discharge coefficient [15] as parameters influencing the onset of flashover. Furthermore, the analyses generally mentioned that experimental validation was needed, which is in agreement with the fact that the CFD modeling in references [6,8,9] was unable to fully reproduce the results of the experimental tests.…”

“…Thomas et al [6] used a Room Corner test facility [7] to study the effect of * Correspondence should be addressed to: Annemarie Poulsen, E-mail: amp@byg.dtu.dk quantity and position of ethanol pool fires. They found the level of the HRR to be dependent on the pool location and ranked the HRR magnitudes as frontback-centre in a descending order, with the HRR of the centre location being comparable to that of free burn test.…”

Numerical Studies on Heat Release Rate in Room Fire on Liquid Fuel under Different Ventilation Factors

“…As pointed out by the program developers [4], inherited limitations in the FDS liquid fuel model would generate problems. This limitation was also incorporated based on other research studies conducted by Smardz [33], Moghaddam et al [34], and Thomas et al [35]. Therefore, it is suggested that liquid fuel model should be applied carefully to engineering application.…”

Numerical studies on atrium smoke movement and control with validation by field tests

“…Experimental data reported by Steckler et al [8] originally for studying doorway flow have been used many times. Other works on verifying field models are on a specific fire scenario by Chow and Zou [9]; FDS for the prediction of medium-scale pool fires by Wen et al [10]; and comparing FDS4 combustion model by Thomas et al [11]. There are very few validations on using the model for large compartment fires [12].…”