Configuration Approaches of CFAST for Prediction of Smoke and Heat Detector Activation Times in Corridor Fires

Abstract

In performance-based design for domestic buildings, there is a growing need for real-time comparison between the Available Safe Egress Time and Required Safe Egress Time through the integration of fire and evacuation simulations. Therefore, the utilization of the Consolidated Model of Fire and Smoke Transport (CFAST) has been discussed as an alternative to the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), which has high computational costs; requires sufficient experience in the numerical calculation of fire dynamics, along with various input parameters; and has limitations in coupling with evacuation simulations. In this study, the prediction performance of CFAST for the activation times of smoke and heat detectors was evaluated. Specifically, it is essential to configure the mass movement between adjacent computational regions for smoke concentration. For achieving adequate predictive performance, the temperature should be determined according to the ceiling jet velocity generated by the fire source. Therefore, a method for setting a computational domain that can produce reasonable prediction results while considering the characteristics of CFAST for different types of smoke and heat detectors is proposed.