Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

In this paper, numerical and experimental study on flame merging behavior in group fires were carried out. The porous 15cm-square burner was used as a unit burner and propane was employed as a fuel. The burners with various numbers and heat release rates were placed in square configuration with various separation distances. Flame height using video images and temperature distribution with height using thermocouples were measured. The validity of numerical model of FDS (Fire Dynamics Simulator) from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) was confirmed from the comparison with the experimental data. The comparison results show that FDS correctly simulate flame merging behavior in group fire. In addition, the transitional separation distance with frequent flame merging was determined by way of numerical simulation.