- Author
-
Cooper, L. Y.
- Title
- Compartment Fire-Generated Environment and Smoke Filling.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Report
-
NFPA SFPE 95; LC Card Number 95-68247,
- Book or Conf
- SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering. 2nd Edition. Section 3. Chapter 10,
National Fire Protection Assoc., Quincy, MA,
DiNenno, P. J.; Beyler, C. L.; Custer, R. L. P.; Walton, W. D.; Watts, J. M., Jr.; Drysdale, D.; Hall, J. R., Jr., Editors,
3/174-196 p.,
1995
- Keywords
-
fire protection
|
fire protection engineering
|
compartment fires
|
smoke
|
fire safety
|
building design
|
egress
|
equations
|
smoke spread
|
scenarios
|
mathematical models
|
temperature
|
time
|
thickness
|
combustion products
|
detection time
|
ignition
|
smoke filling
- Identifiers
- hazard calculations; ASET - a model for predicting the smoke filling process in a room of fire origin; compartment fire-generated environment; room of fire involvement; smoke spread from the room of fire involvement to adjacent spaces; smoke spread outside the smoke compartment of fire involvement; mathematical models and computer codes for predicting the compartment fire environment; initial value problem for the temperature of the upper layer and the position of the interface; safe available egress time from the solution to the initial value problem for upper layer thickness and temperature; initial value problem for the concentration of products of combustion; using combustion produce concentrations to establish the time of detection and the onset of untenability; assumptions on the disposition of energy release and their implications; available safe egress time in a semi-universal fire; experimental, full-scale, multi-room fire scenario; model predictions compared with experimental results; time, temperature, and concentration when the smoke drops to the fire elevation
- Abstract
- The following generic problem must be solved if one is to be able to establish the fire safety of building designs: [*] Given: Initiation of a fire in a compartment or enclosed space, [*] Predict: The environment that developes at likely locations of occupancy, at likely locations of fire/smoke sensor hardware (e.g., detectors and sprinkler links), and in locations of safe refuge and along likely egress paths, [*] Compute: The time of fire/smoke sensor hardware response and the time of onset of conditions untenable to life and/or property. This computation would be carried out from the above predictions, using known response characteristics of people, hardware, and materials. The above is only a simple sketch of the overall problem that is likely to be associated with the interesting details of many real fire scenarios. A long-term challenge of fire science and technology is to solve the above type of problem, even when it is formulated in elaborate detail. Compartment fire modeling is the branch of fire science and technology which develops the necessary tools to address this generic problem. This chapter will describe some of the key phenomena that occur in compartment fires, and it will focus on smoke filling which is one of the simplest quantitative global descriptions of these phenomena. A specific smoke-filling model will be presented, and solutions to its model equations will be discussed along with example applications.