Postflashover fires ? an overview of the research at the national research council of Canada (NRCC), 1970?1985

Abstract

The NRCC model of fully developed compartment fires is discussed. Although the mathematics involved is quite simple, it allows a rather comprehensive simulation of the fire process. The model offers an explanation for the findings that ‘ventilation control’ is related to the pyrolysis mechanism and is not a result of scarcity of air in the fire compartment, and that thermal feedback is of secondary importance in the “burning” (pyrolysis) of cellulosic fuels. Another feature of the model is the introduction of the normalized heat load concept. The normalized heat load is a scalar quantity that depends on the total heat absorbed by the compartment boundaries during the fire incident, and is practically independent of the temperature history of the fire. A simple explicit formula has been proposed and proved experimentally to describe the normalized heat load for real-world fires with fair accuracy. The normalized heat load concept offers a simple means for converting fire severities into fire resistance requirements, and makes it possible to design buildings for prescribed levels of structural fire safety. The potential of fires to spread by convection and the expected characteristics of fires of noncharring plastics are also discussed.