Antonio Gamba PhD

A numerical model based on cellular automata to assess travelling fires

T

he evolution of our society with a concentration of economic activities in companies of ever-growing size is leading to the situation that many people work and gather in buildings of larger size. Fire in these buildings poses a real threat to human life. Recent studies have shown that significantly non-uniform temperature distributions are likely to appear in compartments of large size, challenging the assumption of a uniform gas temperature. Fire in large compartments tend to burn locally and to move across the floor over a period of time, which lead to the now widely known concept of “travelling fires”.

Several models have been proposed to describe the evolution in time of travelling fires. Although these models represented an innovative step in the field of travelling fire, major drawbacks of these models can be found in the simplification of fire dynamics and limited field of application.

The purpose of this thesis is to develop a numerical model of travelling fire. The model is based on an improved zone model combined with a cellular automata model. GoZone, the software in which the model has been implemented is aimed to describe the complex dynamics of the fire from ignition, to a phase of growing localised fire that may eventual travel in the compartment, possibly followed by a flashover.

Publications

A numerical model based on cellular automata to assess travelling fires, Antonio Gamba, Thèse de doctorat, 2021

Modelling the influence of steel structure compartment geometry on travelling fires, Article, 2021

Propagation tests with uniformly distributed cellulosic fire load, Article, 2020

Toward a standardized uniformly distributed cellulosic fire load, Communication, 2019

Progressive collapse triggered by fire induced column loss: Detrimental effect of the thermal forces, Article, 2018

Cfd analyses used to evaluate the influence of compartment geometry on the possibility of development of a travelling fire, Communication, 2018

Behaviour of steel frame structures under localised fire including progressive collapse during cooling, Communication, 2018