Application of scaling laws to fire and smoke modelling

Abstract

Full-scale studies on smoke filling process in large volumes are becoming more frequent. However, testing in full-scale is complex and expensive, so one of the alternatives used is the construction of reduced-scale models. Full-scale and reduced-scale experiments of a pool fire in an atrium are compared to numerical models in FDS. The more flexibility of numerical models allows the simulation at different scales by applying the scaling laws and achieving dynamic similarity, which cannot be satisfied with experimental tests. Results show good agreement between numerical and experimental results, although dynamic similarity can be numerically fulfilled in different ways, what leads to a deeper study.

Full-scale studies on smoke filling process in large volumes are becoming more frequent. However, testing in full-scale is complex and expensive, so one of the alternatives used is the construction of reduced-scale models. Full-scale and reduced-scale experiments of a pool fire in an atrium are compared to numerical models in FDS. The more flexibility of numerical models allows the simulation at different scales by applying the scaling laws and achieving dynamic similarity, which cannot be satisfied with experimental tests. Results show good agreement between numerical and experimental results, although dynamic similarity can be numerically fulfilled in different ways, what leads to a deeper study.