Influence of Wooden Compartment’s Fuel Moisture Content on Time to Flashover: An Experimental and Numerical Study

Abstract

Time to flashover is an important fire safety parameter. The present study investigated the effects of fuel moisture content on the time to flashover, crucial in fire safety analysis. Experiments and simulations of an ISO 9750-1 room model at 1/8 scale were performed by varying the wooden compartment boundaries’ moisture content between 5% and 16%. The results showed a linear increase in time to flashover with fuel moisture content. An empirical model to predict the time to flashover according to the moisture content was developed. The experiments showed that increasing the moisture from 6.5% to 14.4% prolonged the flashover time from 4.6 min to 8.75 min. These experimental results are consistent with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling using Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), which also depicts a corresponding increase in the time to flashover. These findings demonstrate the critical role of fuel moisture content in fire safety analysis. The results suggest that a 1/8-scale model can be utilized for cost-effective and easily manageable education and demonstration purposes. This includes helping fire brigades and fire academy students comprehend the significance of fuel moisture content in compartment fire development. Since the FDS modeling is not restricted to a 1/8 scale, the presented results are promising regarding CFD modeling of time to flashover in full-scale compartments.