- Author
- Nelson, H. E.
- Title
- Room Fires as a Design Determinate--Revisited.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Journal
- Fire Technology, Vol. 26, No. 2, 99-105, May 1990
- Keywords
- room fires | ventilation | geometry | fire plumes | conservation | air | oxygen | flashover
- Identifiers
- conservation (modeling) concepts; air (oxygen) factor
- Abstract
- In 1965, I presented a paper entitled, "Room Fires as a Design Determinate," at the annual meeting of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. This paper involved a number of firsts. It was my first published paper; it was part of the first technical seminar presented by the Society of Fire Protection Engineers; and it was published in the first volume of Fire Technology (pp. 197-204). After twenty-five years, a second look is in order. In 1965 I proposed two basic elements in determining the impact of a fire in a room, the first of these being the intensity of the fire. The intensity of the fire was divided into three categories as a function of the fuel, geometry, ventilation, and fire-resisting strength of the room construction. The purpose of this article is to point out a few of the elements overlooked in 1965 but now recognized as important, and to bring several new concepts to bear.