Deterministic–stochastic approach to compartment fire modelling

Abstract

A generalized Semenov model is proposed to describe the dynamics of compartment fires. It is shown that the transitions to flashover or to extinction can be described in the context of the catastrophe theory (or the theory of dynamical systems) by introducing a suitable potential function of the smoke layer temperature. The effect on the fire dynamics of random perturbations is then studied by introducing a random noise term accounting for internal and external perturbations with an arbitrary degree of correlation. While purely Gaussian perturbations (white noise) do not change the behaviour of the fire with respect to the deterministic model, perturbations depending on the model variable (‘coloured’ noise) may drive the system to different states. This suggests that the compartment fires can be controlled or driven to extinction by introducing appropriate external perturbations.