BACKDRAFT RISK ASSESSEMENT: MY THESIS

As some professional has asked me to have a look my thesis, I have put it in the "library" section where you can see the whole thesis and developments. 

Here the context of the Project where the thesis was done.

This work is the result of three and a half years of work developed in the  FIRENET European research project. This European research project is focused on compartment fires developed in a ventilation-controlled situation and has a direct relevance to public safety, especially for those called to deal with emergencies such as fire fighters.

Seven research groups take part in the FIRENET project, five universities and two technological centres. The universities are: Kingston University (KU), Ulster University (FireSERT), University of Naples (UONF), National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), the University of Poitiers (LCDCNRS) and the University of Liege (ULG). And the technological centres are: ANSYS and Iceland Fire Authorities (IFA).

At the beginning of the project, each group was assigned to develop some specific tasks but during the evolution of the project new tasks were included and others were removed. In the following paragraph, a brief introduction of the main tasks of each group is provided.

Kingston University was asked to perform a study through numerical modelling of water mist by fire suppression as well as the development of a combustion model for under-ventilated fires, focusing on the simulation of backdraft and ghosting flames. The task of Ulster University was to perform an experimental investigation of glazing system response when exposed to under-ventilated enclosure fire conditions. The University of Naples was in charge of investigating solid fuel degradation and combustion, especially wood and synthetic polymers such as polyurethane, and the behaviour of different classes of flame-retardants. The University of Athens, due to administrative problems
had to abandon the project. The tasks assigned to the University of Poitiers were focused on a conducting ghosting flames test that will be used for validating the results obtained by others in their numerical simulations. The task carried out by ANSYS was to model the events leading to backdraft
phenomena such as gravity current and deflagration. The main tasks of the Iceland Fire Authorities were the completion of backdraft tests as well as the completion of CFD modelling of gravity currents.

The tasks for the University of Liege were to: · Perform a further analysis of the new parametric fire curves proposed by EC1 based on the existing database of full-scale fire tests from previous EC funded research.

· Develop a simple numerical model for predicting and analysing backdraft phenomenon.
· Develop a zone model for the prediction of glazing response
· Implement the previous models in OZone.