Experimental and numerical investigations of heat impact and flame heights from fires in SBI tests

Abstract

This work consists of experimental and numerical investigations of heat impact and flame heights from fires in single burning item (SBI) tests. In the experiments, thin steel plate probes were developed, as an inexpensive and reliable alternative to heat flux gauges, to measure the surface heat flux, whilst flame heights were determined by analyzing the instantaneous images extracted from the videos of the experiments by a CCD camera. The experimental results were subsequently used to assess the accuracy of the CFD code, Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), for predictions of the surface heat flux and flame heights. The results indicated that although FDS V4.07 predicts reasonably flame heights, it underpredicts significantly the surface heat flux especially at higher heat release rates. Consequently, sensitivity of the parameters used in the radiation and soot models in FDS was examined. Copyright © 2008 International Association For Fire Safety Science.