TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigating Numerically the Effect of Wind on Fire Spread Between Two Informal Settlements Dwellings
AU - Beshir, Mohamed
AU - Mohamed, Mohamed
AU - kouritem, sallam
AU - Lemmertz, C K
AU - Roman Centeno, Felipe
AU - Rush, David
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was financially supported by IRIS-Fire project of UK (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Grant No.: EP/P029582/1). Authors would like to thank the smart critical infrastructure research centre- High performance computer lab- faculty of engineering, Alexandria University, Egypt for providing the facility to perform the simulations of this work. Author CKL thanks Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brazil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001. Authors FRC and CKL thank CNPq/Brazil for research Grant 407036/2021-0. The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest and informed consent was obtained from all individual participants involved in the study. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).
PY - 2023/3/6
Y1 - 2023/3/6
N2 - Previous full-scale fire studies revealed that the role of wind on fire spread between informal settlement dwellings was critical. However, the influence of wind conditions on informal settlement dwellings fire spread is currently understudied in the literature. This study aimed to investigate the effect of external wind conditions on fire spread between two informal settlement dwellings with a distance of 1 meter between them. A parametric numerical analysis was performed using the computational fluid dynamics code Fire Dynamics Simulator. The numerical models were benchmarked through laboratory experiments. The investigation included an analysis of the fire spread mechanism, flashover conditions, and heat transfer processes at the boundaries of the dwellings. Simulations were conducted with burning wood cribs as fuel and three wind speeds (6 m/s, 10 m/s, and 14 m/s) with four wind directions (East, West, South, and North). Results showed that wind speed and direction had a significant impact on the fire dynamics of the origin dwelling and its spread to neighboring dwellings. The wind direction also influenced the time to flashover in both dwellings, with a delay observed when the wind flowed through the alley between the two dwellings. The total heat transfer coefficient was found to be directly proportional to the wind speed for all directions. The internal radiative heat transfer coefficient of one wall was found to represent the total heat transfer coefficient in different scenarios. This study highlights the complexity of determining the role of wind in urban fire spread and underscores the need for further research in this area.
AB - Previous full-scale fire studies revealed that the role of wind on fire spread between informal settlement dwellings was critical. However, the influence of wind conditions on informal settlement dwellings fire spread is currently understudied in the literature. This study aimed to investigate the effect of external wind conditions on fire spread between two informal settlement dwellings with a distance of 1 meter between them. A parametric numerical analysis was performed using the computational fluid dynamics code Fire Dynamics Simulator. The numerical models were benchmarked through laboratory experiments. The investigation included an analysis of the fire spread mechanism, flashover conditions, and heat transfer processes at the boundaries of the dwellings. Simulations were conducted with burning wood cribs as fuel and three wind speeds (6 m/s, 10 m/s, and 14 m/s) with four wind directions (East, West, South, and North). Results showed that wind speed and direction had a significant impact on the fire dynamics of the origin dwelling and its spread to neighboring dwellings. The wind direction also influenced the time to flashover in both dwellings, with a delay observed when the wind flowed through the alley between the two dwellings. The total heat transfer coefficient was found to be directly proportional to the wind speed for all directions. The internal radiative heat transfer coefficient of one wall was found to represent the total heat transfer coefficient in different scenarios. This study highlights the complexity of determining the role of wind in urban fire spread and underscores the need for further research in this area.
U2 - 10.1007/s10694-023-01374-y
DO - 10.1007/s10694-023-01374-y
M3 - Article
SN - 0015-2684
JO - Fire Technology
JF - Fire Technology
ER -