Reconstruction of the Grenfell Tower fire—Part 5: Contribution to the understanding of the tenability conditions inside the apartments following the façade fire

Abstract

The serious fire incident at Grenfell Tower in London, involving a combustible façade system that was installed as part of a major refurbishment of the building, has raised concerns regarding the fire risk that these systems pose. The fire spread over the façade of the Tower was previously numerically modelled and this model was validated by comparison with observational data. This model was used to determine the fire behavior of the façade and the fire's propagation into apartments through windows. In the present paper, impact models are used to evaluate tenability conditions inside the Tower, especially for the apartments in the first corner of the Tower that caught fire. The source of toxic effluents includes the components used in the refurbishment of the façade and the apartment furniture. Different hypotheses of gas yields are tested to assess variability and unknowns in the burning conditions. An extensive literature review was conducted to investigate the toxic yields to be considered in the simulations. Tenability conditions are assessed for each apartment during the fire spread over the façade. This leads to the quantification of the thermal and toxic environment inside the apartments. Two different models are tested for thermal and toxic threats, and the influence of the insulation material used in the façade is investigated. The results showed that the same conclusion can be made regardless of the input data for toxicity and the model used, within the limits of the studied dataset and conditions. Fires from the apartments quickly drive tenability conditions, independently of the dataset and model used, and even if mineral wool is used instead of poly-isocyanurate as façade insulant.

Fire Resistance of Geopolymer Foams Layered on Polystyrene Boards

“…The technical characteristics of these innovative materials make it possible to mitigate problems such as fire propagation. An example is the Grenfell tower fire on 14 June 2017 [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 ], where a fire started by a fridge malfunctioning on the fourth floor. The fire spread rapidly up the building’s exterior in less than 15 min, bringing fire and smoke to all the other residential floors.…”

Reconstruction of the Grenfell tower fire—Part 6—Numerical simulation of the Grenfell tower disaster: Contribution to the understanding of the tenability conditions inside the common areas of the tower

“…This work calculated the fire conditions, over time, at every location on the façade and inside the apartments, in terms of burning condition, window failure, heat release rate and effluent concentrations (Figure 4). This whole approach allowed the understanding of the interactions between apartments and the façade fire, 34 and highlighted the importance of the apartment contents themselves as the main contributor to the loss of tenability conditions (via both thermal and toxic effects) inside the Tower. An impact model was created including fire loads from the façade system and apartment furniture (as and when the fire propagated into the apartments).…”

“…For each of those rooms, the local effluent concentrations as well as the local temperature are set numerically from the previous analysis of the tenability conditions in each apartment. 34 Carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen chloride concentrations, and gas temperature can thus be evaluated in the lobbies and stairwell. Unlike the analysis performed in reference 34, which was based on tenability models applied in each room of the different apartments, the analysis performed in lobbies and stairs is limited to gas concentrations and temperatures.…”

“…First, the thermal and toxic conditions inside the apartments, as derived from previous modelling. 34 Second, the status of doors, as derived from a detailed review and analysis of the expert report's to references 2-5, and the final Phase 1 report of, the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, 1 which allowed the definition of a general scenario for resident evacuation at different times during the disaster.…”

“…The simulation allowed the evaluation of local concentrations of effluents and temperature conditions in each room (kitchen, living room and bedroom) of each apartment. In reference 34, an impact model was considered including fire loads from the façade system and from apartment contents, where relevant. This allowed the quantification of the conditions inside the Tower, by an analysis of the toxic and thermal contributions from combustion of both the façade components and each apartment's contents.…”