Effect of opening geometries on fire development in a ro-ro space

ABSTRACT

A series of model scale experiments were conducted to study the fire development in a ro-ro deck with various opening geometries. The experiments were performed in a 1/8 reduced scale model with a heptane pool fire as fire source. Experimental results show that both the ventilation factor and the opening position affect the fire development. The critical opening ratio for the fire to self-extinguish is 4%, with the opening locating at the bottom of the side walls while no self-extinction is found for other tests. A higher opening position and a larger opening height provide better flow exchange between the deck and the ambient, but this effect is only obvious for 4% opening. Numerical study shows that Fire Dynamic Simulator used with default simple settings underestimates the fire development and yields an early extinction when fire self-extinction occurs. For freely developed fire with large openings, FDS gives more close results to experiments.

KEYWORDS:

• Ro-ro space
• fire development
• opening
• ventilation

Acknowledgements

The tests and simulations constitute parts of the research project RO5 (ro-ro space fire ventilation) which is financed by Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) and The Swedish Mercantile Marine Foundation (Stiftelsen Sveriges Sjömanshus).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Swedish Transport Administration and The Swedish Mercantile Marine Foundation.