- Author
-
Reneke, P. A.
|
Peatross, M. J.
|
Jones, W. W.
|
Beyler, C. L.
|
Richards, R.
- Title
- Comparison of CFAST Predictions to USCG Real-Scale Fire Tests.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
Hughes Associates, Inc., Baltimore, MD
Coast Guard Research and Development Center, Groton, CT
- Journal
-
Journal of Fire Protection Engineering,
Vol. 11,
No. 1,
43-68,
February 2001
- Report
-
NISTIR 6446,
January 2000,
16 p.
- Distribution
- AVAILABLE FROM National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, VA 22161. Telephone: 1-800-553-6847 or 703-605-6000; Fax: 703-605-6900. Website: http://www.ntis.gov
- Keywords
-
fire models
|
predictive models
|
zone models
|
fire tests
|
test methods
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fire safety
|
heat release rate
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smoke movement
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CFAST
|
ventilation
- Identifiers
- CFAST (Consolidated Fire growth And Smoke Transport)
- Abstract
- The zone model CFAST was used to make predictions of single room pre-flashover tire tests conducted in a steel enclosure. These results were then compared with previously published measurements obtained in fire tests. Tests included diesel pool fires, polyurethane slab fires, and wood crib fires. Half of these tests used natural ventilation (window, 1/4 door, and full door) while the remaining tests used forced ventilation (0.25 m3/s, 0.38 m3/s, and 0.61 m3/s). With the exception of heat release rates, all CFAST inputs were selected without knowledge of the experimental results. Key variables compared include the upper layer temperature, the hot layer interface location, and ceiling temperatures. Overall, predictions made by CFAST were in good agreement with the data. There was a general tendency to over predict both the hot gas layer temperature and the boundary surface temperature which may be due to under prediction of boundary heat losses. Experimental results showed that heat release rates varied with ventilation configurations by as much as a factor of 3. This observation indicates that the wide practice of using free bum heat release rate data in compartment fire predictions can result in over prediction of compartment fire conditions.