eBook - ePub
Enclosure Fire Dynamics, Second Edition
Björn Karlsson, James G. Quintiere
This is a test
Share book
- 366 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Enclosure Fire Dynamics, Second Edition
Björn Karlsson, James G. Quintiere
Book details
Book preview
Table of contents
Citations
About This Book
Enclosure Fire Dynamics, Second Edition explores the science of enclosure fires and how they cause changes in the environment of a building on fire. The authors discuss mechanisms controlling enclosure fires and how to develop analytical relationships useful in designing buildings for fire safety. Derivation of equations from first principles is shown, stating assumptions and showing comparisons to experimental data, giving calculated examples for clarity. The text provides readers with the skills needed to solve a range of engineering equations and problems.
Features include:
-
- Describes the outbreak of compartment fires and the mechanisms controlling them
-
- Derives simple analytical relationships from first principles and shows how to compare the derived equations with experimental data, giving calculated examples for clarity.
-
- Provides the calculational procedures and describes computer models needed to design a building for safety
-
- Cites the most up-to-date standards and references throughout
-
- Includes numerous chapter problems to test student readers' understanding of fire behavior
Enclosure Fire Dynamics, Second Edition will enhance the knowledge of fire protection engineers, researchers, and investigators and help build a strong foundation for engineering students.
Frequently asked questions
How do I cancel my subscription?
Can/how do I download books?
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
What is the difference between the pricing plans?
Both plans give you full access to the library and all of Perlego’s features. The only differences are the price and subscription period: With the annual plan you’ll save around 30% compared to 12 months on the monthly plan.
What is Perlego?
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Do you support text-to-speech?
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Is Enclosure Fire Dynamics, Second Edition an online PDF/ePUB?
Yes, you can access Enclosure Fire Dynamics, Second Edition by Björn Karlsson, James G. Quintiere in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Derecho & Ciencias forenses. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
1 Introduction
DOI: 10.1201/b22214-1
CONTENTS
- 1.1 Terminology
- 1.2 Background
- 1.3 Core Curriculum in Fire Safety Engineering
- 1.4 Background on Performance-Based Building Codes
- 1.5 The Fire Safety Engineering Design Process and Code Demands
- 1.6 Engineering Models for Enclosure Fires
- 1.6.1 Energy Evolved and Species Generated
- 1.6.2 Fire-Induced Environment
- 1.6.3 Heat Transfer
- 1.7 Contents of This Textbook
- 1.8 A Note on Dimensions, Units, and Symbols
- References
This chapter begins with a brief description of the state of fire safety engineering design and explains the context in which this textbook was written. It discusses the core curriculum of fire safety engineering and places the material presented in the book into context with other topics within the fire safety engineering discipline. The concept of performance-based design is introduced and examples given of how performance-based demands are presented in building codes. A brief description of the fire safety engineering design process is presented. Such design work must often include verification that certain design limits are met, which frequently requires the use of fire safety engineering calculations or modeling. Enclosure fire models currently used in fire safety engineering design are briefly discussed, and a list of the most common dimensions, symbols, and units used when calculating various key parameters is presented. Finally, an overview of the contents of the book is given and general notations explained.
1.1 Terminology
ASET, Available Safe Egress Time: The time available for escape for an individual occupant, the calculated time interval between the time of ignition, and the time at which conditions become such that the occupant is estimated to be incapacitated, i.e., unable to take effective action to escape to a safe refuge or place of safety. The words “egress” and “escape” are considered to be synonymous in this textbook.
Fire safety engineering: The application of engineering methods based on scientific principles to the development or assessment of designs in the built environment through the analysis of specific fire scenarios or through the quantification of risk for a group of fire scenarios.
Performance-based design: The application of engineering methods to design the fire safety (or other objectives) of a building. Performance-based design may include simple qualitative verification methods or more complex methods such as deterministic or risk-based verification methods.
Performance-based regulation or code: A document that expresses requirements for a building or building system, in terms of societal goals, functional objectives, and performance requirements, without specifying a single means for complying with the requirements. Pre-accepted solutions and verification methods for demonstrating compliance with code requirements are usually referenced in the code.
Pre-accepted solutions: A solution that has been determined by the authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) to comply with the objectives set in the fire safety requirements. Here, the terms prescribed solutions, prescriptive solutions, acceptable solutions, and deemed-to-satisfy solutions are considered to be synonymous with the term pre-accepted solutions.
RSET, Required Safe Egress Time: Time required for escape, calculated time period required for an individual occupant to travel from their location at the time of ignition to a safe refuge or place of safety. The words “egress” and “escape” are considered to be synonymous in this textbook.
1.2 Background
Fire safety regulations can have a major impact on many aspects of the overall design of a building, including layout, esthetics, function, and cost. Rapid developments in modern building technology in the last decades often have resulted in unconventional structures, new building materials, and design solutions. The physical size of buildings increases continually; there is a tendency to build large underground car parks, warehouses, and shopping complexes. The interior design of many buildings—with large light shafts, patios, and covered atriums within buildings connected to horizontal corridors or malls—introduces new risk factors concerning spread of smoke and fire. Past experiences or historical precedents (which form the basis of current prescriptive building codes and regulations) rarely provide the guidance necessary to deal with fire hazards in new or unusual buildings.
At the same time there have been great strides in the understanding of fire processes and their interrelationship with humans and buildings. Advancement has been particularly rapid in the area of analytical fire modeling. Several different types of such models, with varying degrees of sophistication, have been developed and are used by engineers in the building design process internationally.
As a result, we have a worldwide movement to replace prescriptive building codes with ones based on performance. Instead of prescribing exactly which protective measures are required (such as prescribing a number of exits for evacuation purposes), the performance of the overall system is presented against a specified set of design objectives (such as stating that satisfactory escape should be effected in the event of fire). Fire modeling and evacuation modeling can often be used to assess the effectiveness of the protective measures proposed.
The need to take advantage of the new emerging technology, both with regard to design and regulatory purposes, is obvious. The increased complexity of the technological solutions, however, requires higher levels of academic training for professionals in fire engineering and a higher level of continuing education during their careers.
Some excellent textbooks, handbooks, and design guides have been produced for this purpose, including An Introduction to Fire Dynamics by Drysdale,1 The SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering,2 Design of Smoke Control Systems by Klote and Milke,3 Fundamentals of Fire Phenomena by Quintiere,4 and Structural Design for Fire Safety by Buchanan and Abu,5 to name only a few.
Design guides and handbooks generally list engineering problems and provide methodologies by which these problems can be solved using specific calculational procedures. The equations used are seldom derived from first principles, and little information is given on the assumptions made or the validity of the approach. To fully understand the effect these assumptions may have in a specific design situation and to be confident of the validity of the chosen calculational procedure, the engineer at some point must have derived the equations from first principles.
The purpose of this textbook is not to act as a design guide or a list of equations that can be applied to specific scenarios but rather to show how engineering equations for certain applications can be arrived at from first principles, to state the assumptions clearly, and to show how the resulting analytical equations compare to experimental data. In this way the reader will get a strong feeling for validity and applicability of a wide range of commonly used engineering equations and models.
This textbook specifically examines enclosure fire dynamics, the study of how the outbreak of a fire in a compartment causes changes in the environment of the enclosure. Before introducing the contents of the book, we shall discuss the fire safety engineering core curriculum in Section 1.3 and provide a background to performance-based design in Section 1.4. In Section 1.5, we shall describe the fire safety engineering design process and code demands, and in Section 1.6, we briefly discuss engineering models currently used for calculating the environmental consequences of a fire in an enclosure. Finally, we discuss some commonly used symbols and units.
1.3 Core Curriculum in Fire Safety Engineering
The field of fire safety engineering encompasses topics from a wide range of engineering disciplines as well as material of unique interest to fire safety engineering. It is not immediately obvious which of these topics of interest should be addressed in a textbook for students.
When identifying the subject area of the current textbook, the authors were greatly assisted by the publication A Proposal for a Model Curriculum in Fire Safety Engineering, by Magnusson et al.,6 which identifies the contents of the background, fundamental, and applied courses that may be taught within the discipline of fire safety engineering. The Society of Fire Protection Engineers7,8 has expanded on the curriculum in recent years for both bachelor’s and master’s programs, but the description below is based on the work of Magnusson et al.
The fundamental courses listed by Magnusson et al. are divided into five modules:
- Fire fundamentals
- Enclosure fire dynamics
- Active fire protection
- Passive fire protection
- Interaction between fire and people
This textbook deals mainly with the second module, enclosure fire dynamics. The modules, however, are interlinked to a considerable extent, and it is often a question of preference where to include borderline topics and where to present a summarized background. The book by Drysdale1 is an excellent text for a course on fire fundamentals that emphasizes the basic chemistry and physics of fire, but the book also touches upon several topics within the other modules listed above.
Also, it is not obvious where to strike the balance between material presented in the fundamental modules and material assumed to be prerequisite knowledge from basic courses in physics, chemistry, fluid mechanics, etc. We assume that the student has a basic knowledge of mathematics, physics, and chemistry.
This textbook does not attempt to provide an in-depth study of the phenomena but rather to present the most dominating mechanisms controlling an enclosure fire and to derive some simple analytical relationships that can be used in practice. In vi...