Numerical Calibration of Hydrocarbon Localised Fire Tests by Means of Fire Dynamics Simulator

Abstract

The paper describes the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) numerical simulations performed with the aim to reproduce the experimental outcomes of hydrocarbon pool fire tests carried out at the University of Liege (B) and at the University of Ulster (UK) within the European RFCS LOCAFI project. In detail, several pool fire tests of different dimensions (0.7 m ÷ 2.2 m) and fuels (heptane and diesel) were simulated by exploiting the CFD software Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). Tests without steel column, with steel column inside/outside of the pool fire and without/with ceiling were analysed. Calibration of numerical models was mainly focused on providing a good match between experimental and numerical heat flux. Hence, useful information on the parameters that influence most the numerical simulations is given in the paper