Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

Fire math models, solved via computer, are approaching sufficient generality to make performance fire codes practical. They are already adequate to explore the nature of fire resulting from a wide range of conditions. This investigation has examined the effect on the fire in an enclosure of the height of the fuel above the floor, the height of the doorway, the fire against a wall or in a corner, the size of the horizontal fuel slab, the total mass of fuel, the doorway width, the size of the room (from 1/4 to 4 times), and the plume algorithm a s predicted by the newest fire code FIRST. The most important effect on the fire is the occurrence of oxygen starvation; all other effects are relatively small. Because of space limitations, only the base fire and the effects of fuel height, doorway height, and the wall and corner are presented in some detail here.