A posteriori modelling of a fire spreading in selected types of industrial halls

Abstract

Two different scenarios of fire development identified for two industrial halls are considered and discussed in detail. In both cases an attempt is made, using the appropriate numerical models, to describe a posteriori the spread of a fire that has already occurred in the past. The numerical model is implemented in a Fire Dynamic Simulator (i.e. FDS) computer program and used for simulation. The first considered hall is an one-storey two-aisled steel structure with an incomplete covering of its side walls. Recyclable materials were stored inside, mainly the plastic waste. The fire observed in this hall developed slowly, being repeatedly partly suppressed and then subjected to flashover again. The other building described in this contribution is an one-bay steel hall located in a transhipment terminal, in which the crude oil was stored in railroad tank cars. In this case, a fire initiated by the ignition of oil leaking from the damaged tank car and quickly intensified by the collapse of a part of the hall roof proceeded rapidly until the fuel supply ran out. The basic parameters of both models developed by the authors were calibrated on the basis of available material data as well as of the reports received from meteorological stations located in the vicinity of the destroyed halls.