Experimental and Numerical Investigation of a Room Fire in a Wooden-Frame Historical Building

Abstract

ABSTRACTFire safety is an important issue in all types of construction, especially in wooden-frame historical buildings. In this study, room fire experiments were conducted in a full-scale model storeroom with high fire load in a wooden historical building to explore fire growth and spread via heat release rates and indoor air temperatures. Numerical simulations mimicking the fire scenario were conducted using FDS software to predict fire features, and these findings were compared with the experimental results. The results showed that development trends during fire growth were aligned, but they displayed time differences. During the fully developed fire period, the heat release rates from the experiment were less than the predicted values. The reason for the low heat release rates in the experiment was that the collapse and stacking of fire loads were not effectively simulated.