LEARNING OUTCOMES

The aim of the course is to provide the basis for fire-fighting design criteria in harmony with the criteria of the performance design - Fire Safety Engineering. Particular attention will be devoted to the definition and analysis of the development of fire scenarios. These topics are the prerequisites to the final study of the protection of occupants from the effects of the propagation of harmful effluents (Smoke), with specific software.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students will learn the basics of fire safety analysis and they will use them to develop a short FSE project in a simple fire scenario, using fire simulation software, such as CFast and FDS.

Attending to the lectures and to the seminar/tutorial hours the students develop the ability of analysing a simple reference case, defining a proper fire scenario, carrying out the simplifications necessary to proceed with the solution, setting up proper performance level and evaluate the capability of meeting the design criteria, using software like CFAST or FDS

TEACHING METHODS

Lectures (65%) and seminar/classroom activity (35%)

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Methodology for the performance based approach in design building for fire safety.

Introduction to the concept of performance criteria, with reference to Italian and European rules as well as to SFPE Engineering guide to performance-based fire protection

Qualitative description of combustion, and combustion thermochemistry, short notes on pyrolysis, properties of fuels, combustion products, chemical equilibria of combustion reactions and CO production.
Qualitative description first item ignition and propagation.
Heat Transfer:
Transient conduction: thin body, semi-infinite solid body and applications, natural convection, Navier Stokes, models for solution of N.S. eq.: zone models, field models
Thermal Radiation
Simplification for the definition of fire scenarios:
Description of models for flame parameterization and radiant load estimation, Definition of fire and project fire scenarios. HRR, smoke production,  calculation of  temperature in a closed compartment,
time to flashover, area affected by the fire.

Life safety: occupant behavior, location and condition (ISO SS5)
Methodology and Definitions
Factional Effective Dose concept
Calculation of the ASET:
Calculation of the RSET:
strategies, behavioral scenarios, parameters, analytical and numerical models of evacuation
 Detection and suppression

Numerical simulation with CFAST and FDS
SGSA, Fire Safety Management System

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://pages.nist.gov/fds-smv/manuals.html

NIST Special Publication 1019, Sixth Edition, Fire Dynamics Simulator User’s Guide, Kevin Mc Grattan, Simo Hostikka, Jason Floyd, Randall McDermott, Marcos Vanella, http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1019

NIST Technical Note 1889v2, CFAST – Consolidated Model of Fire Growth and Smoke Transport (Version 7), Vol.2: User’s Guide, Richard D. Peacock, Paul A. Reneke, Glenn P. Forney, This publication is available free of charge from: http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.1889v2