Simulation of Fire in Super High-Rise Hospitals Using Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS)

Abstract

Background: Among various types of disasters, fire constitutes a significant threat to life and property in urban and rural areas. Protection the hospitals against fire is very important due to presence of disable persons, lack of awareness and expensive devices and equipments in the hospitals. The present study was aimed to fire simulation in the super high-rise hospital. Methods:This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in a super high-rise hospital (17 floor) in 2018-2019. The project was divided into two steps: 1) Preparation of 3D model of the hospital using 3D CAD Modeling Software; 2) The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique is used to predict the fire dynamics (smoke propagation, temperature distribution, heat release rate and total energy) in the hospital using the Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS). Results:The fire simulation results showed that after 10 seconds from the onset of fire in the third floor of the hospital with the intensity of 1620/79 kW, the temperature, total energy and heat release rate reaches 87 °C, 5640 kW and 937 kW, respectively. According to the simulation results, after 600 seconds, the temperature, total energy and heat release rate were 610 °C, 928 kW and 933 kW, respectively, which the fire had reached to an uncontrollable stage.Conclusion: By correction of staircases and elevator shaft, the spread of fire can be controlled effectively. To improve the level of fire risk and appropriate actions during emergency situation in super high-rise hospital, required measures especially in the area of containment and extinguishment including buildings design for smoke control, fire alarm and extinguisher systems.

Numerical Validation of the Two-Way Fluid-Structure Interaction Method for Non-Linear Structural Analysis under Fire Conditions

“…where 𝜃 is the surface temperature of the steel member, 𝑘 is the correction factor for the shadow effect, 𝐴 /𝑉 is the section factor for the unprotected steel member, 𝑐 is the specific heat of steel, 𝜌 is the mass density of steel and ℎ is the net heat flux. The steel temperatures at the three points in Figure 12 were calculated using two methods and compared with the experimental data of the steel surface, as shown in Figures [16][17][18]. The steel temperatures calculated by the heat transfer equation show a similar rising curve slop at three measuring points with the experimental data during the initial period (0-150 s).…”

“…The FDS developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology has been widely introduced in fire engineering divisions for modeling various fire scenarios [14]. Many studies have validated the FDS [11,[15][16][17][18][19]. The FDS can accurately calculate the values of gas-phase environments, such as temperature, heat flux, velocity and species concentrations, in a variety of fire simulations by comparison with experimental databases [20,21].…”

Factors influencing hospital emergency evacuation during fire: A systematic literature review

“…Inhaling smoke is usually the primary cause of death in this situation. [ 70 ] On the other hand, smoke reduces visibility so that people cannot track the evacuation routes during the evacuation, and as a result, they encounter obstacles delaying the evacuation. [ 71 ] In conclusion, fire characteristics (heat, smoke, etc.,) affect the emergency evacuation process, and hospitals should appropriately adjust their responses corresponding to such characteristics.…”

Numerical Simulation of Smoke Control in Underground Space

“…e CFD model used in this study is FDS developed by NIST. FDS [17][18][19] is suitable for solving the N-S equation of low-speed heat-driven flow, and it can simulate the smoke flow and the heat transfer commendably. To highlight the movement of smoke, this simulation adopts the combustion parameters of polyurethane with the smoke generation fraction of 0.05. e model size is 50m × 60 m × 7 m, and the area of the smoke bay is 2200 m 2 .…”