- Author
- Rehm, R. G. | Cassel, K. W. | McGrattan, K. B. | Baum, H. R.
- Title
- Gravity-Current Transport in Building Fires.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Book or Conf
- Transport Phenomena in Combustion. Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Transport Phenomena in Combustion (ISTP-VIII). Volume 1. July 16-20, 1995, Taylor and Francis, Washington, DC, San Francisco, CA, Chan, S. H., Editors, 745-756 p., 1995
- Keywords
- combustion | fire research | building fires | gravity current | heat transfer | equations | simulation | smoke transport
- Identifiers
- hydrodynamic model; integral model
- Abstract
- Gravity currents (GC) are studied using two models. First, the transient two-dimensional, Navier Stokes equations in the Boussinesq limit are numerically integrated with high resolution. Inflow and outflow boundary conditions are used to simulate fresh-water/salt-water experiments, and the computational results are compared with the experimental results to demonstrate the validity of the model. Then the effects of heat transfer are examined. Next, a one-dimensional integral model based on the equations of shallow-water theory is presented. Whereas the two-dimensional computations require no adjustable parameters to agree with experimental results, the one-dimensional model is semi-empirical and requires parameters to be determined form comparison with the numerical or experimental results. First the model is used to examine effects of friction, and then the effects of heat transfer are included. Sample numerical solutions of the equations are presented in each case.