Calculation of Shipboard Fire Conditions

Successful techniques have been developed for simulating some experimental shipboard fires. The experimental fues were staged in Holds 4 and 5 of the Mayo Lykes, a test ship operated by the United States Coast Guard Fire and Safiety Test Detachment at Little Sand Island in Mobile Bay, Alabama. The tests simulated an engine-room or galley fire in the compartment adjacent to simulated hazardous cargo. The purpose of these tests was to determine the effect the fires in Hold 4 had on the cargo in Holds 4 and 5. The simulation is done with CFX, a commercial computational fluid dynamics code. Analyses show that simulations can accurately estimate a maritime fire environment for radioactive materials packaging. Radiative heat transfer dominates the hold-fue environment near the hot bulkhead. Flame temperatures between 800 and 1000°C give heat fluxes and temperatures typical of the measured fire environment for the simulated radioactive materials package. The simulation predicted the occurrence of flow patterns near the calorimeter (simulated radioactive materials package) similar to those observed during the experiment. The simulation was also accurate in predicting a heated fluid layer near the ceiling that increases in thickness as time passes