New Report Released on the Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena Working Group’s Third Workshop
The report "Proceedings of the Third Workshop Organized by the IAFSS Working Group on Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena (MaCFP-3)" was recently released on GitHub. This report summarizes the main findings from the International Association for Fire Safety Science’s Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena Working Group’s third workshop, called MaCFP-3.
The report was coauthored by UL Research Institutes’ principal research engineer Jason Floyd and research engineer Dushaynt Chaudhari, as well as coauthors from ten other organizations. Findings from this report will inform the Fire Modeling Development and Validation research project, led by ULRI’s Fire Safety Research Institute.
Introduction to the MaCFP Working Group
Established in 2015, the MaCFP Working Group coordinates a structured effort within the fire research community to systematically advance Computational Fluid Dynamics fire modeling by deepening the understanding of fire phenomena. The MaCFP aims to foster collegial, community-wide, international collaboration between fire research scientists, both experimentalists and modelers.
Key technical goals of the MaCFP include:
- Identify current research topic needs and knowledge gaps.
- Identify target experiments that characterize these critical fire phenomena.
- Present detailed comparisons of numerical approaches to simulate these behaviors.
- Maintain a digital archive of these experimental and numerical modeling results.
Highlights and Key Findings From the MaCFP-3
The MaCFP-3 workshop was held on October 22, 2023, as a pre-event to the 14th IAFSS Symposium hosted in Tsukuba, Japan. During this workshop, new experimental measurements and numerical simulations focused on separate condensed- and gas-phase phenomena were presented. The Working Group also coordinated its first attempt to model coupled condensed- and gas-phase cases, specifically flame spread over black Poly(methy methacrylate) (PMMA) in a single burning item apparatus.
The five MaCFP target cases and their objective are:
- National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) & Waterloo University Pool Fires - prediction of burning rates for liquid pool fires, plume temperatures, plume velocities, and near and far field radiative heat flux.
- FM Burner - prediction of plume temperature, plume velocities, in-flame soot concentration, spatial radiative emissions, and flame extinction for an ethylene burner in a co-flow.
- NIST gasification - prediction of the pyrolysis rate and temperature for PMMA exposed to a radiant heat flux in an inert environment.
- Parallel Panel Fire Tests - prediction of total heat release rate and total surface heat flux for black PMMA panels ignited by a propane gas burner in a parallel panel configuration.
- Single Burning Item Test Fires - prediction of total heat release rate, total surface heat flux, and far field radiative flux for black PMMA panels in a corner configuration ignited by a propane gas burner.
Key findings from MaCFP-3 include:
- Gas Phase
- Models are now making more accurate predictions of the products of incomplete combustion, such as soot and CO, compared to previous workshops. However, there are still empirical parameters associated with the predictions.
- Although most models employ the Eddy Dissipation Concept for turbulent combustion, there is ongoing interest in utilizing detailed chemistry and/or flamelet models.
- Condensed Phase
- In some cases, grid dependence can be reduced by using constant heat and mass transfer coefficients at solid or liquid surfaces. Empirical models of these coefficients are based on the assumption that the boundary layer length scales are much less than the grid size, which cannot be assumed in a grid resolution study.
- Coupled Cases
- Predictions of the fire growth in the parallel panel apparatus indicate that the ignition source, in this case a gas burner, can significantly impact results. In particular, coarse grids did not accurately capture the initial heat flux pattern.
Additionally, MaCFP launched a new subgroup focusing on radiation heat transfer phenomena. The Radiation Heat Transfer subgroup focuses on creating new radiation benchmark problems for fire-related radiation issues in both the gas and condensed phases, using these cases to improve the radiation submodels within the fire models.
For full details about MaCFP-3 test cases, key findings, motivation for the radiation subgroup, and additional information, read the full report:
