Uncertainty analysis in compartment fire simulations

As computational tools increase their power, engineering areas find new tools to work with and this in no exception for safety engineering and fire safety engineering. The current approaches on building design taking into account fire scenarios are divided in the prescriptive approach and the performance-based approach. In the latter the fire phenomenon itself it simulated and its severity estimated, resulting in key information that aids the decision making process. However, as with any physical model, a level of epistemic uncertainty is involved. This paper presents a comprehensive study on this uncertainty through the development of a comparison between experimental results, fire dynamics theory and simulation results of a system that reproduces a post-flashover compartment fire. The results show that the uncertainty involved is ever so important for the analysts that perform these types of simulations for performance-based design (PBD) of structures, and cannot be ignored in the decision making processes in which safety barriers and systems are defined