Fuelbreak effectiveness against wind-driven and plume-dominated fires: A 3D numerical study

Frangieh, Nicolas; Accary, Gilbert; Rossi, Jean-Louis; Morvan, Dominique; Méradji, Sofiane; Marcelli, Thierry; Chatelon, François-Joseph

doi:10.1016/j.firesaf.2021.103383

Cited by 11 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(64 reference statements)

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“…It is well known that 3D models are always better at simulating real physical processes [49][50][51][52][53]. However, the use of 3D models is always limited to the use of available computing equipment, particularly supercomputers [54,55].…”

Section: Numerical Simulation Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This, on the one hand, will allow any reader to reproduce the results of the presented calculations, and on the other hand, it is important for practical applications for engineers since the number of their calculations increases many times depending on the initial parameters. In our work, we It is well known that 3D models are always better at simulating real physical processes [49][50][51][52][53]. However, the use of 3D models is always limited to the use of available computing equipment, particularly supercomputers [54,55].…”

Section: Numerical Simulation Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Influence of Compartment Fire Behavior at Ignition and Combustion Development Stages on the Operation of Fire Detectors

Жданова

Волков

Sviridenko

et al. 2022

Fire

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This paper presents experimental research findings for those involved in the early phase of fire in office buildings. Class A model fires with a reaction area from 5 cm2 to 300 cm2 were chosen for investigation. To mock up a fire, the following combustible materials typical of offices were used: wood pieces, heat-insulated linoleum, paper and cardboard. The main characteristics of a model fire were recorded: temperature in the combustion zone, heat release, time of complete burnout and concentration of flue gas components. Typical trends and histograms of changes of these characteristics over time were presented; stages of ignition, flame combustion and smoldering were illustrated. The key characteristics of fire detector activation at different stages of model fire combustion were analyzed. Dead bands and operation conditions of a group of detectors (smoke, heat, optical, flame), their response time and errors were identified. It has been established that the most effective detectors are flame and smoke detectors. Specific operational aspects of detectors were established when recording the ignition of different types of model fires. The viability of combining at least two detectors to record fire behavior was established. Recommendations were made on using the obtained findings when optimizing the systems for detecting and recording the start of a compartment fire.

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Section: Numerical Simulation Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Numerical Simulation Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of Compartment Fire Behavior at Ignition and Combustion Development Stages on the Operation of Fire Detectors

Жданова

Волков

Sviridenko

et al. 2022

Fire

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Outside the fuelbreak the vegetation layer was constituted as follows: a dry grass (FMC = 5%) with a fuel load ranged between 0.25 and 1 kg/m 2 . In order to reproduce a quasi-infinite fire front (to avoid some effects, such as the curvature of the fire front resulting from finite ignition line), periodic boundary conditions have been imposed on the lateral sides of the domain (see Figure 1) (Frangieh & al, 2021). As indicating in the abstract, a quite large set of conditions (wind, fuel height) has been tested to cover the two regimes of propagation identified in the literature, namely the winddriven fires and the plume-dominated fires.…”

Section: Introduction and Numerical Configurationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But this level of details needs also to pay a high price in terms of computational resources and to collect numerous data on the field to describe the structure and the state of the fuel. For these reasons, this kind of formulation is presently limited to describe a fire front at a relatively small scale (< 1 km), however sufficient in many fire safety engineering problems, such as the present one, the evaluation of the effectiveness of fire breaks (Frangieh & al, 2021;Morvan, 2015), or others more fundamental problems associated to wildfires physics (Morvan, 2014(Morvan, , 2013Frangieh & al, 2020).…”

Section: Introduction and Numerical Configurationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fuelbreaks design: from CFD modelling to operational tools

Frangieh¹,

Accary²,

Rossi³

et al. 2022

Advances in Forest Fire Research 2022

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Dimensioning a fuelbreak remains always a challenging problem. For a long time, this problem was tackled using an empirical approach from the experience of operational users such as the fire fighters and the foresters. During the last decades, new approaches coming from fire safety engineering have completed the set of tools adapted to study this problem. These tools are all based on physical considerations, more or- less sophisticated. The simplest ones, consist in assimilating the flame as a radiant panel, calculating the distribution of radiant heat flux as a function of the distance separating the flame to a potential target and defining at what distance this heat flux reached a critical threshold level susceptible to produce damages on this target (pain for people or ignition for materials). The most complex ones, consist in solving the conservation equations (mass, momentum, energy ...) governing the behaviour of complex coupled problem formed by the vegetation, the flame front and the surrounding atmosphere. This new generation of engineering tool, based on CFD approach allows to directly predict the behaviour of a fire front propagating toward a fuelbreak, in order to evaluate its efficiency as a function of the amount of surface fuel (grass, shrubs) removed to reduce locally the fuel load and therefore the intensity of an incoming fire. These two approaches are fully complementary, only the first one has the potentiality to be spread operationally on the field, whereas the second one can contribute to improve the first one and to study with more detail some very sensitive situations such as those encountered in the wildland urban interface (WUI). The main part of this study concerns numerical simulations of the propagation of a fire front through a homogeneous vegetation layer (a grassland) in the vicinity of a fuelbreak represented by a band more or less wide inside which all the fuel was removed. The simulations were performed using a fully physical wildfire model (FIRESTAR3D), three variable parameters were considered in this study: the 1m open wind speed (U1 ranged between 3 and 10 m/s), the fuel height (HFuel ranged between 0.25 and 1m) and the fuelbreak width (LFB). With these conditions, the simulations covered a large range of values of the Byramâ€™s convective number NC (0.3 < NC < 60) in order to explore wind as well driven fires (NC < 2) and plume dominated fires (NC > 10). The 72 simulations carried out in this study have been classified in three categories: 1/ Propagation (if the fire has crossed the fuelbreak with a propagation after); 2/ Overshooting or Marginal (if the fire has crossed the fuelbreak without a propagation after); 3/ No-propagation (if the fuelbreak has stopped the fire). The main objective of this study was to determine the optimal fuelbreak width LFBx separating between the Propagation and the No-propagation regimes, in order to generalize the conclusion, the results have been presented in dimensionless form (similitude theory) in representing as an example the ratio LFBx/HFuel versus the Byramâ€™s convective number NC.

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“…In [13], methods of combating the movement of a forest fire front were described. In [14], a simulation of the effectiveness of blocking the spread of fire in the field was carried out.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parallel Implementation of the Algorithm to Compute Forest Fire Impact on Infrastructure Facilities of JSC Russian Railways

2021

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Forest fires have a negative impact on the economy in a number of regions, especially in Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas. An important link in the fight against fires in WUI areas is the development of information and computer systems for predicting the fire safety of infrastructural facilities of Russian Railways. In this work, a numerical study of heat transfer processes in the enclosing structure of a wooden building near the forest fire front was carried out using the technology of parallel computing. The novelty of the development is explained by the creation of its own program code, which is planned to be put into operation either in the Information System for Remote Monitoring of Forest Fires ISDM-Rosleskhoz, or in the information and computing system of JSC Russian Railways. In the Russian Federation, it is forbidden to use foreign systems in the security services of industrial facilities. The implementation of the deterministic model of heat transfer in the enclosing structure with the complexity of the algorithm O (2N2 + 2K) is presented. The program is implemented in Python 3.x using the NumPy and Concurrent libraries. Calculations were carried out on a multiprocessor cluster in the Sirius University of Science and Technology. The results of calculations and the acceleration coefficient for operating modes for 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 48 and 64 processes are presented. The developed algorithm can be applied to assess the fire safety of infrastructure facilities of Russian Railways. The main merit of the new development should be noted, which is explained by the ability to use large computational domains with a large number of computational grid nodes in space and time. The use of caching intermediate data in files made it possible to distribute a large number of computational nodes among the processors of a computing multiprocessor system. However, one should also note a drawback; namely, a decrease in the acceleration of computational operations with a large number of involved nodes of a multiprocessor computing system, which is explained by the write and read cycles in cache files.

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Fuelbreak effectiveness against wind-driven and plume-dominated fires: A 3D numerical study

Cited by 11 publications

References 32 publications

Influence of Compartment Fire Behavior at Ignition and Combustion Development Stages on the Operation of Fire Detectors

Influence of Compartment Fire Behavior at Ignition and Combustion Development Stages on the Operation of Fire Detectors

Fuelbreaks design: from CFD modelling to operational tools

Parallel Implementation of the Algorithm to Compute Forest Fire Impact on Infrastructure Facilities of JSC Russian Railways

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