Study on Fire Dynamic Development in a Multistory Building Compartment

Abstract

A simulation on fire dynamic development is needed to see how fire hazard of a building compartment, particularly in a multistory building. The fire development is affected by fire load content, passive (geometry and building openings) and active (detection, alarm and fire sprinkler) system arrangements. This paper discusses fire hazard of a compartment in a multistory building Rusunami in Indonesia. CFD-Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) is used for simulation. Fire load content is modelled by using mattress and wardrobe materials. Room layout is based on the built Rusunami. The results show that continuity of fire is affected by air flow through building openings. With less oxygen, at 390 seconds fire develops to produce maximum temperature of 150 °C, at 408 seconds fractional effective dose (FED) of toxic gases reach incapacitate of 0.5 and accumulation such gases significantly increased. At rich oxygen condition, the time needed from ignited stage until critical temperature is around 486 seconds, and after that in 48 seconds flash over occurred suddenly. This data will then be used as available safe egress time (ASET) to check the fulfillment of performance based fire protection approach in a building compartment.