Numerical simulation of wood crib fire behavior in a confined space using cone calorimeter data

The simulation of wood crib fire behavior in a confined space with fire dynamics simulator (FDS) was presented in this paper, including the heat release rate, flame temperature, central temperature of crib, and oxygen concentration. In the simulation, the cone calorimeter data, such as ignition temperature and heat release rate of wood material measured from cone calorimeter test, were inputted into FDS. Simulations were compared with the results of practical wood crib burning experiments. The simulation results shown that the inputted heat release rate data from cone calorimeter tests obtained with different external heat flux (35-50 kW m(-2)) had little influence on the simulation results. The heat release rates were in good agreement with the experimental measurement with the biggest difference of 13.9 % in peak value. FDS underestimated the flame temperatures at lower positions about 10 % during the steady state, and the difference between simulation and experiment in flame temperature decreased as the height of measurement position increased. Although there was a big difference in decay phrase, the temperatures in the middle of wood crib were successfully simulated for the overlapped curves during (I) Fast growth stage and (II) Moderate growth stage of burning. The oxygen concentrations were overestimated because the oxygen concentrations measured at the height of 1.8 m in the space were higher than the experimental data with an average difference of 15.5 %. On the whole, an effective way was provided with reasonable results to study the burning characteristics of wood crib fire with numerical simulation.