Applicability of FLASH-CAT Model to Cable Tray Fire Modeling in Zone Model BRI2002

To clarify the heat and smoke propagation in multi-compartments under the spread of cable fire, a large-scale multi-compartment fire test (hereinafter the CFS-2 test) was performed by the Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN) in France within the framework promoted by the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) program PRISME2 (OECD/NEA, 2017). In the CFS-2 test, two rooms of a large-scale facility were adopted and these rooms have an identical volume (120 m3) enclosed with fire walls and were connected by a doorway (0.8 m in width and 2.17 m in height). As a fire source, five-layer cable trays (tray length of 2.4m, tray width of 0.45m and separation distance between trays of 0.3 m) with a fire-retardant PVC cable (77 kg) were used and ignited by a propane gas burner. The power level of the propane gas burner was set to around 80 kW. Moreover, all rooms were mechanically ventilated, and the renewal rate was 15 times per hour (3600 m3/h). During the fire test, the mass loss rate of fuel, gas and soot mass concentration, gas temperature, and etc. were measured. The measured peak values of the HRR, the mass loss rate and gas temperature were about 800 kW, 58 g/s and greater than 600 °C, respectively (Zavaleta, 2017). As a fire model predicting fire characteristics in a compartment, a two-zone model, which divides the fire room into the hot smoke upper layer and lower layer consisting of cool fresh air, is widely used due to the advantages of the brevity of the calculation routine and the reliability of the calculation results. Among them, the BRI2 series, developed in Japan, is now reaching the current BRI2002 software (Wakamatsu, 2004) after several upgrades to improve the calculation precision. The Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) introduced the cable tray fire source model based on the FLASH-CAT (Flame Spread over Horizontal Cable Trays) developed by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (McGrattan, 2012) into the zone code BRI2002. By comparing the numerical results with the experimental values measured during the CFS-2 test, the methodology for ignition time delay of each tray and horizontal flame propagation speed for each tray were discussed.

Compartment temperature estimation of a multiple-layer cable tray fire with different cable arrangements in a closed compartment

Fire hazard analysis of multiple-layer cable tray is an important part of nuclear safety analysis. Large-scale cable fire experiments with a three-layer horizontal cable tray were conducted in a closed compartment. The vertical temperature profile in the middle of the room was acquired. Distinctive stratification phenomena were found in the vertical temperature distribution. The interface between the upper and lower layer was located at approximately the height of the top cable layer. Heat transfer between the smoke and compartment walls occurred mainly above the smoke interface. A modified non-steady energy balance model in a closed compartment which included the effect of smoke interface height was used to estimate the compartment temperatures. Compared with the experimental results, the modified model for the multiple-layer cable tray fire in a closed compartment provides better estimation than the original model.

A modified zone model on vertical cable tray fire in a confined compartment in the nuclear power plant

Room fire with vertical cable tray involves upward flame spread along the cable. Assessing the vertical cable tray fire hazard in confined spaces has been challenging because of the strong coupling between flame spread and heat transfer. Long computing time is required in using sophisticated field model with computational fluid dynamics. Therefore, developing an appropriate zone model in a cable room fire with experimental validation is required for engineering applications. In this study, a vertical cable tray fire in a confined compartment was simulated using a modified zone model along three new areas on having temporal variations of the fire position, upward-spreading cable flame considered as a burning source moving at a constant speed, and validated through full-scale experiments on vertical cable tray fire with two typical cable-line spacing. The modified zone model can predict accurately the upper-layer temperature in the compartment. The accuracy is at least 25% higher than the model with fixed fire position. The measured temperature at different heights started to decrease at different times, which was due to the vertical spreading of the cable flame. For interface height, the relative error and normalized Euclidean distance in the time-varying fire position model can be improved by 50%.

A Method Evaluating Fire Hazard of Multiple-Layer Cable Tray and its Validation

Multi-layer cable tray fire has special burning characteristics that the cable flame spreads horizontally along cable tray and propagates vertically from bottom layer to upper layer at the same time. With respect of accuracy and speed of calculation, simulation of multi-layer cable tray fire remains a challenge for fire models. In this paper, a method is proposed to simulate multi-layer cable tray fire. By developing a more accurate fire source description, this method can provide accurate simulation for multi-layer cable tray fire rapidly. In this method, Firstly, the heat release rate of each burning cable tray is evaluated by FLASH-CAT model. Based on the results from FLASH-CAT, a more accurate fire source definition for multiple lay cable tray is developed for zone model. Taking account of each burning cable tray considered as one fire source point, zone model is applied to predict the fire dynamics process. In order to validate this method, four-layer cable tray fire experiments and replicated experiments were carried out in a confined compartment. The histories of mass loss rate of cable tray and temperatures at the middle of compartment were recorded during the cable fire. From the replicated experimental results of total mass loss rate, it is concluded that the four-layer cable tray fire experiment has good repetition in this scenario. Vertical temperature profile shows that the fire circumstance generated by multiple-layer cable tray burning can be divided into upper hot layer and lower cool layer, which conforms to the basic assumption of zone model. As a consequence, the zone model can be applied to simulating multiple-layer cable tray fire. By comparing the experimental total heat release rate with predictions, it is found that characteristics of multiple-layer cable tray fire are well captured. On account of good prediction on overall heat release rate for multi-layer cable tray fire, predicted heat release rate for each burning cable layer by FLASH-CAT model is believed to be reliable. Then, each burning cable layer is set as one fire source and the heat release rate of each burning cable layer is input into zone model, respectively. The comparisons between simulations and experimental data show that the predicted upper layer temperature and lower layer temperature agree well with experimental data. As a result, it can be concluded that this method provides reliable prediction for multiple-layer cable tray fire rapidly.