Numerical Investigation of the Effect of Sloped Terrain on Wind-Driven Surface Fire and Its Impact on Idealized Structures

Fire

Albert Simeoni¹  Ali Edalati-nejad²  Maryam Ghodrat³ 

[1] Department of Fire Protection Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA 01609, USA;Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Birjand, Birjand 97175615, Iran;School of Engineering and Information Technology, University of New South Wales Canberra, Canberra, ACT 2610, Australia;

关键词: wildfire;    LES;    wildland–urban interface;    wind–fire interaction;    terrain slope;    wind structure;   

DOI  :  10.3390/fire4040094

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In this study, a time-dependent investigation has been conducted to numerically analyze the impact of wind-driven surface fire on an obstacle located on sloped terrain downstream of the fire source. Inclined field with different upslope terrain angles of 0, 10, 20, and 30° at various wind-velocities have been simulated by FireFoam, which is a large eddy simulation (LES) solver of the OpenFOAM platform. The numerical data have been validated using the aerodynamic measurements of a full-scale building model in the absence of fire effects. The results underlined the physical phenomena contributing to the impact of varying wind flow and terrain slope near the fire bed on a built area. The findings indicated that under a constant heat release rate and upstream wind velocity, increasing the upslope terrain angle leads to an increase in the higher temperature areas on the ground near the building. It is also found that raising the inclined terrain slope angle from 0 to 30°, results in an increase in the integrated temperature on the surface of the building. Furthermore, by raising the terrain slope from 0 to 30°, the integrated temperature on the ground for the mentioned cases increases by 16%, 10%, and 13%, respectively.

【 授权许可】

Unknown