Verification and Validation of Selected Fire Models for Nuclear Power Plant Applications. Volume 7. Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS).
Verification and Validation of Selected Fire Models for
Nuclear Power Plant Applications. Volume 7. Fire
Dynamics Simulator (FDS).
(7499 K)
McGrattan, K. B.
NUREG-1824; EPRI 1011999; Volume 7; 205 p. May 2007.
Sponsor:
Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA
Keywords:
nuclear power plants; verification; validation; fire
models; fire protection engineering; risks; ASTM E 1355;
NFPA 805; fire protection; equations; combustion models;
thermal radiation; tests; sensitivity; turbulence; heat
release rate; high temperature gases; ceiling jets;
plumes; temperature; flame height; oxygen; carbon
dioxide; smoke; compartments; pressure; heat flux;
walls; surface temperature; FDS
Abstract:
As the use of fire modeling increases in support of
day-to-day nuclear power plant (NPP) applications and
fire risk analyses, the importance of verification and
validation (V&V) also increases. V&V studies build
confidence in a model by evaluating its underlying
assumptions, capabilities, and limitations, and
quantifying its performance in predicting the fire
conditions that have been measured in controlled
experiments. This volume documents a V&V study for the
Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), a computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) model, for applications relevant to NPPs.
Guidance has been provided by ASTM E 1355, Standard
Guide for Evaluating the Predictive Capability of
Deterministic Fire Models, including the basic structure
of this report. FDS was developed, and is maintained, by
the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST). Version 4 was officially released in July 2004,
and several minor updates had been released as of the
time of publication of this report. All of the
simulations performed for the current V&V study were
done with Version 4.06. With support from the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the FDS Technical
Reference Guide for Version 4 was rewritten to follow
the basic outline suggested by ASTM E 1355. However, the
Guide does not specifically address NPPs. The primary
purpose of this report is to document the accuracy of
FDS in predicting the results of six sets of large-scale
fire experiments that are relevant to NPPs. These
results are found in Appendix A and discussed in Chapter
6 of this report. Chapters 2 through 5 provide brief
summaries of corresponding chapters within the FDS
Technical Reference Guide, which discuss the underlying
theory and the numerical methods.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899