Impact of Firefighting Sprays on the Fire Performance of Structural Steel Members
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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
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Date
2022-07
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Language
en
Pages
36
2405-2440
2405-2440
Series
Fire Technology, Volume 58, issue 4
Abstract
The feasibility of coupled computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element (FE) simulations to aid the planning of fire intervention tactics and the effectiveness of structural cooling during firefighting were investigated. Water sprays, generated using fire monitors, were characterized using bucket tests and the results were used for calibrating the CFD spray model. The cooling ability of the sprays was measured experimentally by applying them onto a fire exposed steel beam. The experimental results showed that water application produces a sudden drop in steel temperatures and after 10–15 s, no significant further reduction in temperature was observed. The CFD-FE coupling was performed using the adiabatic surface temperature method, extended here to include the cooling by water droplets. The coupled CFD-FE model was validated using the experimental data and applied to simulate the intervention to a developing warehouse fire, showing how an attempt to cool the structure reduces the temperatures but does not stall the fire-spread. In fact, the intervention -induced vapor generation was found to enhance the flow of hot gases and accelerate the fire-spread if the water resources are inadequate. Thermal and stress analyses of the cooled and uncooled truss beams were performed, showing how the spray cooling halted the truss mid-span deformation.Description
Funding Information: This work was funded by the Academy of Finland Project No: 289037 and the Finnish Fire Protection Fund (Palosuojelurahasto). The authors would also like to acknowledge CSC—IT Center for Science Ltd. and Aalto Science-IT project for the computational resources provided for the study. Mr. Kimmo Partanen of Emergency Services Academy helped with the experimental work, which is greatly acknowledged. We would also like to thank Dr Jyrki Kesti of Ruukki Construction Oy and Mr Dan Pada of Nordec Oy for their support in the definition of the case study structure. Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s).
Keywords
Abaqus, Adiabatic surface temperature, FDS, FDS2FEM, Fire spread, Firefighting, Water monitors
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Citation
Janardhan, R K, Shakil, S, Hassinen, M, Lu, W, Puttonen, J & Hostikka, S 2022, ' Impact of Firefighting Sprays on the Fire Performance of Structural Steel Members ', Fire Technology, vol. 58, no. 4, pp. 2405-2440 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10694-022-01257-8