Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The objective of the present study is to enhance the simulation capability of the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA, and thereby extend its domain of application towards the treatment of deflagration events in fuel vapor cloud explosions. The proposed deflagration model is based on the filtered reaction progress variable approach, and features a classical flamelet viewpoint combined with an adaptation to a large eddy simulation formulation. The paper discusses the theoretical foundations of the model as well as the numerical difficulties associated with the need to grid-resolve the LES-filtered flame structure. The performance of the LES turbulent deflagration model is also evaluated in a series of benchmark FDS-based simulations corresponding to propagating laminar or turbulent flames.