Citation

Baum HR, Rehm RG, Mulholland GW. Fire Safety J. 1983; 6(3): 193-201.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1983, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In order to understand the response of a detector to a given fire in an enclosure, it is necessary to relate the local thermal and aerosol characteristics actually sensed by the detector to the physical and geometrical properties of the fire and the enclosure. This paper presents computations designed to predict the evolution of the size distribution of smoke aerosol as it ages, as well as the large-scale air movement and temperature fields generated by an enclosure fire.The computations contain three main ingredients: first, a finite difference solution for the air movement and temperature generated by a prescribed source of heat used to represent a fire in a closed form; second, the computer evaluation of an exact solution to the ageing equation correspond to the evolution of an experimentally observed size distribution; and third, a particle tracking scheme which permits the smoke aerosol to be followed in space and time as it gradually fills the room. No nonphysical empirical parameters (e.g. turbulence models) are employed in these calculations. The mathematical and physical models are summarized briefly, but most emphasis is placed on displaying results. Sample calculations are presented, comparisons are made with relevent experiments, and predictions of the local environment experienced by a detector due to the occurrence of an enclosure fire are shown.