Risk assessment of a fire involving combustible materials in a warehouse

This paper shows how a quantitative risk analysis method may be used to evaluate the risk to which the environment of a warehouse may be subjected if a fire breaks out. The purpose of this paper is to present the results the numerical simulations performed with the code FDS [1] in a large volume representative of a warehouse. Evolution of the thermodynamic system is governed by the equations of conservation (mass, energy and chemical species) and by the ideal gas law equation. The results and findings have implications for the modelling of flame spread in warehouse, and for the identification and the assessment of the risks associated with the product storage. Both quantity and type of combustible materials, once ignited, play a major role on the flame height (thermal impact) and on the emission of toxic chemical species, such as carbon monoxide (CO) and soot (C). The present work has been undertaken to study the aspect of gas temperature, velocity, chemical species and radiative intensity during combustion in the case of warehouse fire