Automobile interior fire and its spread to an adjacent vehicle

Abstract

Knowledge of the course of an automobile fire is an important issue in automobile fire safety and can have a significant impact on fire safety measures in car parks and other structures with a high concentration of automobiles. In this article, computer simulations of fire in an automobile interior and its influence on an adjacent vehicle are investigated. The results of simulations are compared with the results of the measurements obtained during a full-scale fire experiment conducted in Povazsky Chlmec (Slovakia) in 2009. The comparison confirms the accuracy of the simulation. A parameter study related to some selected material properties, which shows that seat material properties are the most important for the fire development, is described. Due to high computational requirements, a parallel version of the calculation is studied, and the influence of parallelization on performance and accuracy is tested as well. As the glass breakage is one of the most important factors affecting the course of an automobile fire, a simple practical criterion to determine when window breakage will occur is proposed.