Numerical Analysis of Smoke Behavior and Detection of Solid Combustible Fire Developed in Manned Exploration Module Based on Exploration Gravity

Abstract

A fire during manned space exploration can cause serious casualties and disrupt the mission if the initial response is delayed. Therefore, measurement technology that can detect fire in the early stage of ignition is important. There have been a number of works that investigate the smoke behaviors in microgravity as the foundation for a reliable method for sensing a fire during spaceflight. For space missions to the outer planets, however, a strategy of detecting smoke as an indicator of fire should be adjusted to cover the fire scenario that can be greatly affected by changes in gravity (microgravity, lunar, Mars, and Earth gravity). Therefore, as a preliminary study on fire detectors of the manned pressurized module, the present study examined the smoke particle behavior and detection characteristics with respect to changes in gravity using numerical analysis. In particular, the effects of the combination of buoyancy and ventilation flow on the smoke particle movement pattern was investigated to further improve the understanding of the fire detection characteristics of the smoke detector, assuming that a fire occurred in different gravity environments inside the pressurized module. To this end, we modeled the internal shape of Destiny and performed a series of numerical analysis using the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). The findings of this study can provide basic data for the design of a fire detection system for manned space exploration modules.