Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

A numerical study was conducted to evaluate the use of a two-dimensional adaptation of the Discrete Ordinates Method to estimate the flame radiation energy for burning walls. The methodology extends previous work by substituting the constant soot radiative fraction, X, approach by two-equations, a soot model and a radiative transfer equation without scattering. Predictions for the burning rate distribution, flame structure and velocity field on wall fires in a parallel configuration were carried out for one and two burning walls. The main parameter varied was the distance between the walls. Transport equations for mass, momentum, gas-phase mixture and enthalpy are solved using a finite volume method. Velocities, temperature and turbulent quantities were correlated to experimental data. A good agreement was observed between computations and experimental data. These results have implications when identifying and assessing the risk associated to the bulk storage of materials for different wall spacing/height ratio.