A New Method for Quantifying Fire Growth Rates Using Statistical and Empirical Data – Applied to Determine the Effect of Arson
Author
Summary, in English
When designing fire safety of buildings the fire growth rate is an important parameter, in large affecting the
overall fire safety level within the building. Generally, a deterministic fire growth rate is used raising the
question whether the resulting design arrives at a reasonable level of safety. A method was developed to
obtain distributions of fire growth rates in specific building types. The new method uses data from two
sources: fire statistics, and fire growth rates on single objects obtained by calorimetry experiments. In
addition, the method was demonstrated by a case study investigating whether the overall fire growth rate is
faster for commercial buildings if arson fires are included than if they are not. The results show that there is
a considerably higher fire growth rate when arson fires are accounted for, e.g. designing for a fast fire
growth rate of 0.047 kW/s2 covers 97% of accidental fires (arson excluded) but only 91% of all fires (arson
included). The results indicate that there is a need to account for arson fires when designing buildings when
the probability of arson is high. The developed method provides means to account for arson in fire safety
engineering, and to further quantify the achieved fire safety level.
overall fire safety level within the building. Generally, a deterministic fire growth rate is used raising the
question whether the resulting design arrives at a reasonable level of safety. A method was developed to
obtain distributions of fire growth rates in specific building types. The new method uses data from two
sources: fire statistics, and fire growth rates on single objects obtained by calorimetry experiments. In
addition, the method was demonstrated by a case study investigating whether the overall fire growth rate is
faster for commercial buildings if arson fires are included than if they are not. The results show that there is
a considerably higher fire growth rate when arson fires are accounted for, e.g. designing for a fast fire
growth rate of 0.047 kW/s2 covers 97% of accidental fires (arson excluded) but only 91% of all fires (arson
included). The results indicate that there is a need to account for arson fires when designing buildings when
the probability of arson is high. The developed method provides means to account for arson in fire safety
engineering, and to further quantify the achieved fire safety level.
Department/s
Publishing year
2014
Language
English
Publication/Series
[Host publication title missing]
Document type
Conference paper
Publisher
International Association of Fire Safety Science
Topic
- Building Technologies
Keywords
- fire growth
- statistics
- building code
- design fire
- fire safety engineering
Conference name
11th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science
Conference date
2014-02-09 - 2014-02-14
Conference place
Christchruch, New Zealand
Status
Published
Research group
- Fire dynamics