Simulation of critical evacuation conditions for a fire scenario involving cables and comparison of two different cables

Patrick Van Hees, Daniel Nilsson, Emil Berggren

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Abstract

Previous studies on the evaluation of irritant species from burning cables in a
modified prEN 50399 fire test produced FEC/FED values based on ISO TS 13571.
However, the ISO standard mentions in its scope that these indices can only be used
within e.g. modelling. For this reason Europacable (ECBL) initiated a preliminary
case-study to asses the possibility of using modern fire safety engineering techniques.
The scope of the project was the evaluation of the evacuation conditions for a
realistic fire scenario involving two types of cable fires that produce different levels
of heat, smoke and gases. Both CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) modelling by
means of the software package FDS (Fire dynamics simulator) and evacuation
modelling by means of the software package Simulex were performed. The results
were used to calculate FED (fractional effective doses) and FEC (fractional effective
concentration). The results showed that the developed methodology allows
evaluation of critical evacuation conditions based on not only temperature and
visibility, but also on gas composition. One of the selected cables created critical
conditions for some of the occupants during evacuation for the chosen design fire
when the production of irritant gases (HCl, acreolein, Formaldehydes) is considered.
Original languageEnglish
PublisherLund University
Number of pages42
Volume3147
Publication statusPublished - 2010

Publication series

NameLTH report
Volume3147
ISSN (Print)1402-3504

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Building Technologies
  • Other Civil Engineering

Free keywords

  • fire
  • simulation
  • cables
  • evacuation
  • toxicity
  • CFD
  • fractional effective dose

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