Experimental and numerical analysis of the cooling performance of water spraying systems during a fire

YaoHan Chen; ChungHwei Su; JoMing Tseng; WunJie Li

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0118306

Experimental and numerical analysis of the cooling performance of water spraying systems during a fire

PLoS One. 2015 Feb 27;10(2):e0118306. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0118306. eCollection 2015.

Authors

YaoHan Chen¹, ChungHwei Su², JoMing Tseng³, WunJie Li⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Fire Science, WuFeng University, Minxiong Township, Chiayi County, Taiwan.
² Department of Safety, Health and Environmental Engineering, National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan.
³ Institute of Safety and Disaster Prevention Technology, Central Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taichung City, Taiwan.
⁴ Graduate School of Opto-Mechatronics and Materials, WuFeng University, Minxiong Township, Chiayi County, Taiwan.

Abstract

The water spray systems are effective protection systems in the confined or unconfined spaces to avoid the damage to building structures since the high temperature when fires occur. NFPA 15 and 502 have suggested respectively that the factories or vehicle tunnels install water spray systems to protect the machinery and structures. This study discussed the cooling effect of water spray systems in experimental and numerical analyses. The actual combustion of woods were compared with the numerical simulations. The results showed that although the flame continued, the cooling effects by water spraying process within 120 seconds were obvious. The results also indicated that the simulation results of the fifth version Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) overestimated the space temperature before water spraying in the case of the same water spray system.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Aerosols / chemistry
Computer Simulation*
Fire Extinguishing Systems*
Temperature*
Water / chemistry

Substances

Aerosols
Water

Grants and funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this project from the Ministry of Science and Technology under Grant no. NSC 102-2221-E-274 -001 -MY3. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.