GoZone: A Numerical Model for Travelling Fires Based on Cellular Automata Concept

Antonio Gamba,Jean-Marc Franssen

doi:10.3390/app112210679

Abstract

Fires in large compartments tend to burn locally and to move across the floor over a period of time; this particular behaviour has been discovered to challenge the assumption of uniform gas temperature in the fire compartment. Recent studies on fires in large compartments have led to the now widely known concept of “travelling fires”. Several models have been proposed to describe the evolution in time of travelling fires. Although these models represented an innovative step in the field of travelling fires, the major drawbacks of these models can be found in the simplification of fire dynamics (constant spread rate, 1D imposed fire path) and limited field of application (rectangular based geometries). The purpose of this paper is to present a numerical model of travelling fire. The model was based on an improved zone model combined with a cellular automata model. The software GoZone, in which the model was implemented, is intended to be a practical solution to analyse fires in large compartments of potentially any shape. GoZone is aimed to describe the complex dynamics of the fire from ignition to a phase of growing localised fire that may eventually travel in the compartment, possibly followed by a flashover. The main sub models comprising GoZone are presented. A comparison is given with the results of under ventilated fire test 2 of the BST/FSR 1993 test series and with respect to the Veselì travelling fire test is shown. GoZone shows a promising capacity to represent fires in a large compartment in both air and fuel controlled fire conditions.

Highlights

Knowledge about fire development in buildings, the concept of compartment fire, was developed during the decades in between 1960 and 1990
GoZone is aimed to describe the complex dynamics of the fire from ignition to a phase of growing localised fire that may eventually travel in the compartment, possibly followed by a flashover
The aim of this paper is to present a numerical model that combines the concept of zone model with one of cellular automata

Summary

Introduction

Knowledge about fire development in buildings, the concept of compartment fire, was developed during the decades in between 1960 and 1990. The second author, by extending and formalizing the work of Kawagoe, provided a series of formulations to estimate the fire duration and temperature, the latter was supposed to be uniform in the compartment. Combustion does not occur simultaneously through the whole floor of the compartment; it tends to be limited to some portions of the floor and the position of these burning zones changes over time. These fires have been labelled as “travelling fires” [6]

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