SFPE smoke filling.pdf

Section3/Chapter 10 — IN: DiNenno, P.J., et al., Editors, SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering, 2nd Edition, Chapter 10, Section, 3, 3/174-196 COMPARTMENT FIRE-GENERATED ENVIRONMENT ANDSMOKEFILLING Leonard Y Cooper FIRE SAFETY OF BUILDING DESIGNS Introduction The following generic problem must be solved if one is to be able to establish the fire safety of building designs: Given: Predict: Compute: Initiation of a fire in a compartment or enclosed space. Theenvironment thatdevelopsat likelylocations of occupancy, at likely locations of fire/smoke sensor hardware (e.g., detectors and sprinkler links), and invocations ofsafe refuge and along likely egress paths. The time of fire/smokesensor hardware response andthe time of onset of conditions untenable to life and/orproperty. This computation would be carried out from the above predictions, using known response characteristics of people, hard- ware, and materials. The above is only a simple sketch of the overall problem that is likely to be associated with the interesting details of many real fire scenarios. Along-term challenge of fire sci- ence and technology is to solve the above type of problem, even when it is formulated in elaborate detail. Compartment fire modeling is the branch of fire science and technology which develops the necessary tools to address this generic problem. This chapter will describe some of the key phenomena that occur in compartment fires, and it will focus on smoke filling which is one of the simplest quantitative global de- scriptions of these phenomena. A specific smoke-filling model will be presented, and solutions to its model equa- tions will be discussed along with example applications. Dr.LeonardY. Cooperis a ResearchEngineerin theBuildingandFire ResearchLaboratoryof theNationalInstituteof StandardsandTech- nology.Since 1978 his researchhas focusedon the developmentof mathematicalmodelsoffirephenomenaandontheassemblyof these into compartmentfiramodelsandassociatedcomputerprog