Development and Validation of a Comprehensive Model for Flame Spread and Toxic Products in Full-Scale Scenarios. (Abstract/Presentation)
Development and Validation of a Comprehensive Model for
Flame Spread and Toxic Products in Full-Scale Scenarios.
(Abstract/Presentation)
(248 K)
Welch, S.
NIST SP 998; May 2003.
Keywords:
fire growth; fire spread; scenarios; validation; toxic
products; flame spread
Abstract:
Fire hazard calculations require methodologies for
prediction of fire growth and flame spread over
realistic building materials in full-scale scenarios. If
available, a general model capable of estimating the
"time-to-flashover" would provide a useful vehicle for
evaluation of different methods for reducing the
propensity for transition to flashover, thus
contributing to development of improved fire safety
design. For this purpose, theoretical treatments which
are entirely fundamentally-based are precluded due to
computational limitations and recourse must be made to
some degree of empiricism. Considering the complex range
of interrelated phenomena contributing to the overall
fire growth and spread, if quantitative accuracy and
computational tractability are to be achieved for
full-scale applications, care is needed to ensure an
appropriate balance between the level of sophistication
in the various component sub-models, and between
'empiricism' and 'fundamentals'. This abstract presents
an assessment of these issues in the context of a model
validation exercise on a series of full-scale tests on
real building materials.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899