Experimental and modeling study on the effect of opening location in the under-ventilated compartment fire

Abstract

For compartment fires, a series of reduced-scale experiments and modeling were carried out in order to investigate how and why various opening location affects the compartment fire behaviors included: the temperature inside of the compartment (T_in), the external flame height (h_f), the heat release rate inside of the compartment (Q_in) and the heat release rate outside of the compartment (Q_ex). The existing equation showed fire behavior only depends on the opening area and height. The results were analyzed and compared to the current air mass inflow equation, and the results showed that various opening locations could influence the compartment fire behaviors. Two factors K and O were introduced to show that various opening locations can lead to different amounts of airflow into the compartment, and the different ratios of oxygen were consumed within total oxygen inflowed. This thesis contributed to the current knowledge of compartment fire's ventilation factor and can be applied to architecture design from a fire safety perspective.