Fire Science and Technology

In this paper the use of quantitative risk analysis for the purpose of verification of fire safety designs is discussed. Various methods of quantitative risk analysis are presented and their use in the context of fire safety engineering is exemplified. The use of absolute and relative risk criteria is discussed and various problems associated with the two types are taken up. Due to the inadequacies of absolute criteria, the use of relative risk criterion for verification of fire safety is suggested.

View full abstract

Show abstractHide abstract

A series of fire wind tunnel experiments using an enclosure model and one or two propane gas burners were conducted for elucidating real scale fire and its plume properties of burning houses under a strong wind. Flame temperature distributions and shapes, plume temperature distributions, etc. were measured in various heat release rates of fire source and approaching wind velocities. The past proposed equations regarding temperature distributions along axes of fires in an unconfined space fire and fires ejected from openings of burning houses could be applied to house fires under winds using corrected length values. And the past studies by regarding plume temperature distributions from one burning house could be applied to two fires under winds using representative length newly defined here. These physical relations between fire and plume properties and wind velocities will be introduced to a city fire prediction model now developed by Building Research Institute.

View full abstract

Download PDF (2105K)

Register with J-STAGE for free!