A Method for the Application of Numerical Simulations during Firefighting Operations Using Pre-Simulated, Model-Based Fire Scenarios

Puyan Abolghasem Zadeh,Uwe Rüppel

doi:10.4236/ojce.2013.32a002

Abstract

The spread of fire and smoke during a fire incident plays a crucial role in rescuing people from the burning building. So it is important for the decision makers (the head of rescue staff) to get a prediction about the spread of fire inside the building through computational techniques like numerical fire simulations. But these techniques require advanced mathematical knowledge and are very time consuming. This paper presents a new method which employs a set of pre-simulated and model-based scenarios to find the closest one to the real fire and present its results to the decision makers. For this purpose, we shift the performance consuming numerical fire simulations into a former phase by integration of these simulations into the planning process of the building. This is realized by enhancing the methods of Building Information Modeling (BIM). To provide the fire simulation results during a real case, our new concept includes a scenario database where all simulated fire scenarios will be collected. In a real case, a special search algorithm will go through this database to find the closest pre-simulated fire scenario to the real fire on the basis of reported information from the burning building.

Highlights

Fire safety concepts are very significant for complex buildings with high number of occupants, like hospitals, airports, movie theaters, schools, shopping centers, etc
The spread of fire and smoke during a fire incident plays a crucial role in rescuing people from the burning building. It is important for the decision makers to get a prediction about the spread of fire inside the building through computational techniques like numerical fire simulations
In case of fire in such buildings, it is very important for the rescue staff and the fire brigade to have a reliable prediction about the spread of fire inside the building, when they arrive at the scene of fire

Summary

Introduction

Fire safety concepts are very significant for complex buildings with high number of occupants, like hospitals, airports, movie theaters, schools, shopping centers, etc. In case of fire in such buildings, it is very important for the rescue staff and the fire brigade to have a reliable prediction about the spread of fire inside the building, when they arrive at the scene of fire. This would help the responsible people in the decision making process and support them to take appropriate measures. After 10 minutes this probability is only about 5% It is very significant for the rescue staff on arrival at the operation scene to determine at what stage the fire is and to predict how the fire and smoke are developing in the minutes inside the building

Objectives

Methods

Findings

Conclusion