Heat Transfer to the Structure during the Fire

Chapter 7 in the book: The Dalmarnock Fire Tests: Experiments and Modelling, Edited by G. Rein, C. Abecassis Empis and R. Carvel, Published by the School of Engineering and Electronics, University of Edinburgh, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9557497-0-4The post-flashover Fire Test One of a furnished room in Dalmarnock provides a wealth of information including measurements in both the gas phase and on compartment boundaries (Chapter 3). Total heat fluxes at a number of locations in the room were obtained together with gas flow velocities at all major openings. Materials involved comprised thermally-thick and thermally-thin elements including ceilings, internal and external walls and small length-scale members. This chapter presents the spatial distribution of heat fluxes within the compartment and uses the data to validate an analytical model developed to act as an interface between the gas-phase fire environment and the solid-phase structural elements using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based approach. It is anticipated that the output of such a model can be used on a larger stage to conduct a structural analysis