Free boundary conditions for simulating air movement in a big hall induced by a 'bare cabin' fire

Wan Ki Chow, R. Yin

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Air movement in a big hall induced by a fire in a 'bare cabin' was simulated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Applying CFD in simulating fire-induced air flow in buildings would require specification of free boundary conditions. Improper description of the free boundary conditions would give very different results. Three free boundary conditions commonly used were tested. Three sets of big hall geometry including two bare cabin designs and five heat release rates of fire of 20 kW m-1, 40 kW m-1, 60 kW m-1, 80 kW m-1, and 100 kW m-1were considered. The self-developed program CY-TEAM modified from TEAM was selected as the simulator. Further, the commercial software CFX4.2 was used to compare with part of the results predicted by CY-TEAM. This gave a total number of 60 simulations. Results predicted from all these different geometries, conditions and software were compared. It is concluded that the free boundary condition should be specified carefully in simulating fire-induced air flow with CFD.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)111-147
Number of pages37
JournalJournal of Fire Sciences
Volume17
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 1999

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Mechanical Engineering

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