A Formula for the Equivalent Ventilation Parameter for Use in Calculation of the Fully Developed Fire Temperatures

Abstract

A simple formula has been proposed to calculate the equivalent ventilation parameter of multiple openings. The formula intends to be used as a part of engineering fire resistance design, where the fully developed fire temperature is characterized by fuel load, compartment size, thermal inertia of enclosure walls and ventilation parameter of the compartment opening. As most of the existing approaches assume a single opening in a fire compartment, the equivalent ventilation parameter has to be evaluated prior to using these models. In this study, a simple, closed form formula was developed to calculate the equivalent ventilation parameter that gives same (or conservative) amount of airflow rate into fire compartment. The reasonable agreement of the formula was checked against numerical results changing the aspect ratios and area fractions of the windows in a wide range.