Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety SIMULATION OF CRITICAL EVACUATION CONDITIONS FOR FIRE SCENARIOS INVOLVING CABLES AND COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT CABLES Patrick van Hees & Daniel Nilsson Lund University – Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Outline Background and Scope Choice of building Fire modelling Evacuation modelling Tenability assessment Conclusions Future research

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Is a cable fire dangerous in a realistic building environment? Is cable A better then cable B? Suitable methods for assessment? Background

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Background Prescriptive rules Example: Exit must be 1 m wide Performance based rules Example: Everyone must be able to evacuate before conditions become critical

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Prescriptive rules Example: Only cables of class X are allowed in evacuation routes Performance based rules Example: A specific cable is allowed in evacuation paths if safety can be demonstrated Background

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Fire Safety Engineering (FSE) methods Background

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Develop feasible technique using FSE Compare 2 cables with the technique Scope

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Layout of the procedure

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Requirements a public building a realistic building - FSE possible existence of fire risk related to cables data available – evacuation or fire possible exposure to gases Choice of the building

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Choice of the building

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Choice of the building

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Possible locations Cable cabinet – under balcony Cables in appliances - kitchen Vertical cable tray – in atrium Fire scenario

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Fire scenario Possible locations:

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Choice fire position: Vertical cable tray – in atrium from pre-simulations Fire scenario

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Fire scenario Design fire Data from cable tests – prEN cables - Euroclass D Cable I Cable M FIGRA value => growth rate up to 0.5 MW

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Design fire Product yields from fire tests Cable I – carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, soot Cable M – carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, soot, acrolein, formic aldehyde, hydrogen chloride Fire scenario

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Design fire Fire scenario

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Fire modelling Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety FDS 5 software – parallel version on cluster Fire modelling

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Fire modelling

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Evacuation experiment – input data Time to start (pre-movement) Exit choice Flow on stairs Evacuation scenario

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Evacuation experiment – input data Evacuation scenario

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Evacuation scenarios – 6 scenarios Number and location of occupants Exit choice One scenario selected for tenability assessment (based on 450 occupants) Evacuation scenario

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Simulex software Evacuation modelling

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety FED and FEC – ISO TS FED – accumulated dose FEC – momentary concentration Combination of results FDS – Fire simulations Simulex – Evacuation simulations Matlab – FED and FEC calculations Tenability assessment

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety PropertyCable ICable M FED > FEC > Tenability assessment Based on 450 occupants

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety

Feasibility of the method was demonstrated in this case study Cable M worse than Cable I for this case study Conclusions

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Develop method further Compare cables with other characteristics Test method for other buildings and cases Sensitivity of input data from fire tests Extend to other materials/products Future Research

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety Acknowledgments Report available at Video available at

Lund University / Faculty of Engineering / Department of Fire Safety Engineering and Systems Safety