Numerical Studies on Fire-induced Thermal Plumes

Most of the expressions describing fire plumes reported in the literature are known to be based on experiments. Due to different experimental methods, the geometry of the fire sources, fuel types and surrounding conditions, it is difficult to derive a comprehensive picture of a plume with its temperature and velocity fields on the basis of existing theoretical work. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), which is regarded as a practical engineering tool in fire engineering by the experts, is sure to be able to give more details of the plume behavior under various situations. Aerodynamics for thermally-induced plumes will be studied numerically with CFD. Four typical axisymmetric plume equations will be assessed in this paper, and investigations will be useful for fire engineers in designing smoke management systems in an affordable fashion. This is a critical point in implementing engineering performance-based fire code.