• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.75-83
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• 2012

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the effects of change in heat release rate on unsteady fire characteristics of under-ventilated fire in a semi-closed compartment. A standard doorway width of the full-scale ISO 9705 room was modified to 0.1 m and the flow rate of heptane fuel was increased linearly with time using a spray nozzle located at the center of enclosure. Temperature, heat flux, species concentrations and heat release rate were continuously measured and then global equivalence ratio (GER) concept was adopted to represent the unsteady thermal and chemical characteristics inside the compartment. It was observed that there was a significant difference in unsteady behavior between global and local combustion efficiency, and the GERs predicted by ideal and measured heat release rate were also shown different results in time. The unsteady behaviors of temperature, heat flux and species concentrations were represented well using the GER concept. It was important to note that CO concentration was gradually decreased with the increase in GER after reaching its maximum value in the range of 2.0~3.0 of global equivalence ratio. In addition, the experimental data on unsteady thermal and chemical behaviors obtained in a semi-closed compartment will be usefully used to validate a realistic fire simulation.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.21-28
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• 2012

The objective of this study is to evaluate the prediction accuracy of FDS(Fire Dynamic Simulator) for the thermal and chemical characteristics of under-ventilated fire with unsteady fire growth in a semi-closed compartment. To this end, a standard doorway width of the full-scale ISO 9705 room was modified to 0.1 m and the flow rate of heptane fuel was increased linearly with time (until maximum 2.0 MW based on ideal heat release rate) using a spray nozzle located at the center of enclosure. To verify the capability of FDS, the predicted results were compared with a previous experimental data under the identical fire conditions. It was observed that with an appropriate grid system, the numerically predicted temperature and heat flux inside the compartment showed reasonable agreement with the experimental data. On the other hand, there were considerable limitations to predict accurately the unsteady behaviors of CO and $CO_2$ concentration under the condition of continuous fire growth. These results leaded to a discrepancy between the present evaluation of FDS and the previous evaluation conducted for steady-state under-ventilated fires. It was important to note that the prediction of transient CO production characteristics using FDS was approached carefully for the under-ventilated fire in a semi-closed compartment.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.38-55
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• 1999

In order practically to use fire-defective glazing materials for the compartment wall where a fire-protection rating is mandated, there have been many trials internationally, This research focuses on a feasibility that, if certain water film covered all surface of glass, the glazing system can endure without breaking out under the compartment fire. First of all, a water film spray system was specially designed to wet the entire surface of the glass and also to have tiny small amount of water rebounded from the surface after emitted from nozzles. After this system has proven to have perfect performance, small-scale tests were done to find out if the water film covered glazing system react to the high temperature curve in a small furnace room. Finally, on basis of the obtained data, full-scale experiments were done so that water-film covered glazing system can pass the Korean Standard (KS) test for fire resistance, KS F2257.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.16-22
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• 2017

In Korea, performance-based fire safety designs are being discussed to deal with the various risks of fire in complex and diverse types of structure. However, performance-based fire safety designs are not actively employed because it is difficult to estimate the fire characteristics related to the various factors in buildings. In this study, real scale fire tests were conducted based on fire severity levels and fire loads provided in He New Zealand Building Code, in order to use the results as guidelines and fundamental data for performance-based designs. In the real scale fire tests conducted in a 10MW full-scale calorimeter, wood cribs were placed in a $2.4(L){\times}3.6(W){\times}2.4(H)m$ mock-up of a compartment which had one $0.8(L){\times}2.0(H)$ opening for different fire loads and heating was continued until all of the wood cribs were burned down. The heat release rate started to increase rapidly 90 seconds after the wood cribs caught fire. In the test with a fire load level 1, the maximum heat release rate of 4743.4 kW was reached at 244 second. In the test with fire load level 2, a maximum heat release rate of 5050.9 kW was reached at 497 second. In the test with fire load level 3, a maximum heat release rate of 4446.9 kW was reached at 677 second.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.128-135
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• 2010

In this study, a mixture fraction analysis was performed to investigate the characteristics of chemical species production in compartment fires burning hydrocarbon fuels such as methane, heptane, and toluene. A series of fire experiments was conducted in the ISO 9705 standard room, and gas species concentration and soot fraction were measured at two locations in the upper layer of the compartment. The mass fractions of measured chemical species, such as unburned hydrocarbons (UHC), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide ($CO_2$), oxygen ($O_2$), and soot were presented as a function of mixture fraction and compared with state relationships based on the idealized reaction of hydrocarbon fuels. The mixture fraction analysis made it possible to rearrange hundreds of species measurements, which were done under various fire conditions and at two locations of the upper layer, in term of the unified parameter, i.e. the mixture fraction. The results also showed that inclusion of soot in the mixture fraction calculation could improve the performance of analysis, especially for the sooty fuels such as heptane and toluene.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.131-138
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• 2010

Experimental and numerical studies were conducted to investigate the thermal and chemical characteristics of heptane fires in a full-scale ISO 9705 room. Representative fire conditions were considered for over-ventilated fire (OVF) and under-ventilated fire (UVF). Fuel flow rate and doorway width were changed to create OVF and UVF conditions. Detailed comparisons of temperature and species concentrations between experimental and numerical data were presented in order to validate the predictive performance of FDS (Fire Dynamic Simulator). The OVF and UVF were explicitly characterized with distributions of temperature and product formation measured in the upper layer, as well as combustion efficiency and global equivalence ratio. It was shown that the numerical results provided a quantitatively realistic prediction of the experimental results observed in the OVF conditions. For the UVF, the numerically predicted temperature showed reasonable agreement with the measured temperature. The predicted steady-state volume fractions of $O_2$, $CO_2$, CO and THC also agreed quantitatively with the experimental data. Although there were some limitations to predict accurately the transient behavior in terms of CO production/consumption in the UVF condition, it was concluded that the current FDS was very useful tool to predict the fire characteristics inside the compartment for the OVF and UVF.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.31-39
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• 2013

The Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) has been applied to simulate a full-scale pool fire in well-confined and mechanically ventilated multi-compartments representative of nuclear power plant. The predictive performance of FDS was evaluated through a comparison of the numerical data with experimental data obtained by the OECD/NEA PRISME project. To identify clearly the FDS results regarding to the user-dependence in the process of FDS implementation except for the intrinsic limitation of FDS such as simple combustion model, only the over-ventilated fire condition was chosen. In particular, the importance of accurate boundary conditions (B.C.) in mechanically ventilated system were discussed in details. It was known from FDS results that the B.C. on inlet and outlet vents did significantly affect the thermal and chemical characteristics inside the compartments. Finally, it was confirmed that the FDS imposed an accurate ventilation B.C. provided qualitatively good agreement with temperatures, heat fluxes and concentrations measured inside the nuclear-type multi-compartments.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.19-26
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• 1999

$CO_2$ extinguishing system is the most $\phi$pular among the gas extinguishing system. $CO_2$ is usually stored with liquified state. But, it gasifies at the tip of nozzle when $CO_2$ was released through the pipe and head. A ro$\alpha$n temperature is very low when $CO_2$ was released. So electrical instrument, magnetic storage equipment and memory semiconductor are electrically or physically injured by cooling effect in a few minutes. So, we intend to find out temperature profile and electrical damage in compartment area, and supply basic d data for research and making standards and code through the full scale experiment. As result of experiment on the damage due to cooling effect from $CO_2$ extinguishing system, i instantaneous discharging temperature. was $-82.5^{\circ}C$ in average. An average temp. in the compartment after discharging $CO_2$ was $-40^{\circ}C$.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.37-43
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• 2014

The high predictive performance of fire detector models is essentially needed to assure the reliability of fire and evacuation modeling in the process of Performance-Based fire safety Design (PBD). The main objective of the present study is to measure input information in order to predictive the accurate activation time of fixed temperature heat detectors adopted in Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) as a representative fire model. To end this, Fire Detector Evaluator (FDE) which could be measured the device properties of detector was used, and the spot-type fixed temperature heat detectors of two thermistor types and one bimetal type were considered as research objectors. Activation temperature and Response Time Index (RTI) of detectors required for the fire modeling were measured, and then the RTI was measured for ceiling jet flow and vertical jet flow in consideration of the install location of detectors. The results of fire modeling using measured device properties were compared and validated with the experimental results of full-scale compartment fires. It was confirmed that, in result, the numerically predicted activation time of detector showed reasonable agreement with the measured activation time.