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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: GR/J71540/01
Title: COUPLED CFD AND MATERIAL PROPERTIES FROM FIRE TESTS FOR FIRE SPREAD PREDICTION IN BUILDINGS
Principal Investigator: Moss, Professor J
Other Investigators:
Rubini, Professor P
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Sch of Engineering
Organisation: Cranfield University
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 19 September 1994 Ends: 18 September 1997 Value (£): 111,305
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Building Ops & Management
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
Field models, which exploit advances in the methods of computational fluid dynamics drawn from a diverse range of engineering applications, have become increasingly influential in building design for fire safety. Fire source descriptions remain comparatively crude in these models however and, in the absence of input from representative materials properties and their associated influence on the product gases evolved, the critical prediction of fire spread is rarely attempted. The research proposed here will focus on the development of an improved field model which couples CFD-based combustion modelling for composition, soot and thermal radiation with the materials property data emerging from some of the newer fire test methods, including in particular the cone calorimeter. Alternative strategies for the incorporation of data on rates of heat release and evolved volatile material, under varying irradiance, into the framework of boundary conditions for transient CFD models will be carefully explored. The model developed will be evaluated against detailed experimental measurement of fire spread in a corner between walls of different flammable materials. The approach will then be generalised to the simulation of more complex layouts embracing a broader range of construction materials.
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Organisation Website: http://www.cranfield.ac.uk