- Email: [email protected]
Enclosure fire dynamics
Fire Safety Journal 37 (2002) 121–123
Book review Enclosure fire dynamics Bjo¨rn Karlsson and James G. Quintiere; CRC Press LLC, FL, 2000, 315pp., ISBN 0-893-1300-7 A textbook in fire safety engineering is always eagerly expected by all those involved in the development of this relatively young engineering discipline. Good textbooks, which combine the state of the art in fire safety science and engineering knowledge, are scarce. The course literature in many subject areas of fire engineering has until now been a collection of journal papers, selected sections from various textbooks and handbooks. This creates difficulties for students and teachers, and in general terms can result in the lack of standardization of engineering education in the area. It is worthwhile to mention another aspect. Fire engineering is based on fire safety science and includes its achievements. They are well accommodated and become common knowledge through the textbooks, the best of which can provide not only a systematic and logical description of the subject, but also serve as a ‘‘filter’’ to select the most important scientific approaches, results, methodology and technique. Also, the textbooks are the most efficient way to establish, standardize and balance scientific and engineering terminologies that have to be clear and scientifically substantiated and introduce accurate definitions and criteria, symbols and units that are used in the field. In other words, the textbooks create and polish the ‘‘language’’ of the field. All this is valid for any science, but is especially important for fire safety science, which is a rapidly developing, multi-disciplinary and widely diverse area, that has benefited from many fields of science and engineeringFfrom physics, chemistry, fluid dynamics and computing to fire law, psychology, and economics. From this point, textbooks in fire engineering could significantly influence the progress in fire safety science. Possibly, the ability of a textbook to provide this ‘‘positive feedback’’ from educational materials to the scientific base of the discipline can be regarded as a clear indication of the highest quality of the book in any field. Enclosure Fire Dynamics by internationally renowned scientists Bjo. rn Karlsson and James G. Quintiere, who is one of the founders of fire safety science, clearly demonstrates this valuable feedback feature. As the authors note in their preface, the purpose of the book is not only to act as course literature for fire engineering students, but also to offer educators in the field, the opportunity to comment on the contents of the course and possibly contribute towards some standardization of both educational material and terminology. I think PII: S 0 3 7 9 - 7 1 1 2 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 3 1 - 5
122
Book review / Fire Safety Journal 37 (2002) 121–123
the authors have achieved all these goals. This together with the feedback mentioned above, makes this book a landmark in the field of fire safety engineering. Enclosure Fire Dynamics covers enclosure fires, which are the main object of fire engineering. It provides a complete description of enclosure fires and how the outbreak of a fire in a compartment causes changes in the environment. This book is a significant contribution to the best literature in fire engineering, including An Introduction in Fire Dynamics by D.D. Drysdale, The SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering, Principles of Fire Behaviour by J.G. Quintiere, Combustion Fundamentals of Fire, edited by G. Cox, Buildings and Fires by T.J. Shields and G.W.H. Silcock, to name only a few. The book consists of ten chapters. The first chapter is the introduction which begins with a brief description of fire safety engineering design and explains the context of the book. Enclosure fire models currently used in fire safety design are introduced and briefly analyzed. A special section discusses the core curriculum of fire safety engineering and places enclosure fires in the context of other topics within the fire safety engineering discipline. An overview of the contents of the book is presented, and the general notation, dimensions and units are explained. Chapters 2–9 are constructed by a unified well-thought method. They begin with the terminology, which introduces the main definitions. Then an introduction explains the gist of the matter, formulates the main objectives of a chapter and briefly discusses the main flow of the text in the chapter. The introduction is followed by the main body of the text, the list of references, and the thoroughly selected problems and suggested answers (except Chapters 2 and 10 devoted to a qualitative description of enclosure fires and computer modelling). This uniform approach is consistent with rigorous, clear-cut and logically strong style of the book and serves well for a reader. Chapter 2 provides a qualitative description of enclosure fires, including associated chemical, physical and fluid dynamics phenomena, and typical fire scenarios. Chapter 3 outlines the methods commonly used to estimate the energy release rate. Fire plumes and flame heights, formation of the upper hot layer are considered in Chapter 4. Analysis of vent flows induced by a fire in an enclosure (Chapter 5) leads to the review of methods in order to predict gas temperatures in both the pre and postflashover phases of well-ventilated fires (Chapter 6). Heat balance and heat transfer mechanisms are discussed in Chapter 7. The next chapter states the conservation laws and introduces some commonly applied assumptions which are used to obtain the characteristics of enclosure fires under different ventilation conditions. Chapter 9 discusses a composition of combustion products and introduces the methods available to estimate the toxic hazards of combustion products and the yield of species. Chapter 10 summarizes how the methods discussed in the previous chapters are used in computer modelling of compartment fires. Zone and CFD models are described. Useful information is given on Internet addresses from where computer models and codes can be downloaded. This chapter is supplemented by an Appendix where fire safety engineering resources on the Internet are given. The other two appendices provide suggestions for experiments and computer labs, and a quick introduction to the input part of the well-known model CFAST.
Book review / Fire Safety Journal 37 (2002) 121–123
123
Of particular value is the clear demonstration of how to derive engineering equations and simple analytical relationships from the conservation laws, how to compare these with the experimental data, and the provision of the hand-calculation procedures and computer models needed to design a building for fire safety. The authors manage to combine optimally strong scientific approach with engineering methods and practical needs. Solutions to many instructive problems, useful application of dimensional analysis and well saturated tables with the most important parameters make this book very convenient for everyone involved in fire engineering. It is not difficult to predict a desk companion fate of this book. Enclosure Fire Dynamics is highly recommended to a wide range of readers from researchers in fire safety science to fire engineers, fire safety professionals and all those who are involved to some extent in fire related activities. Also, this excellent book could be recommended as useful and interesting reading for researchers of different fields, including fluid dynamics of reacting media, combustion, heat and mass transfer, and built environment. Perhaps, this is the best that can be said about the book, the title of which sounds so special. G.M. Makhviladze Centre for Research in Fire and Explosion Studies, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR12HE, UK E-mail address: [email protected] May, 2001
Book review Enclosure fire dynamics Bjo¨rn Karlsson and James G. Quintiere; CRC Press LLC, FL, 2000, 315pp., ISBN 0-893-1300-7 A textbook in fire safety engineering is always eagerly expected by all those involved in the development of this relatively young engineering discipline. Good textbooks, which combine the state of the art in fire safety science and engineering knowledge, are scarce. The course literature in many subject areas of fire engineering has until now been a collection of journal papers, selected sections from various textbooks and handbooks. This creates difficulties for students and teachers, and in general terms can result in the lack of standardization of engineering education in the area. It is worthwhile to mention another aspect. Fire engineering is based on fire safety science and includes its achievements. They are well accommodated and become common knowledge through the textbooks, the best of which can provide not only a systematic and logical description of the subject, but also serve as a ‘‘filter’’ to select the most important scientific approaches, results, methodology and technique. Also, the textbooks are the most efficient way to establish, standardize and balance scientific and engineering terminologies that have to be clear and scientifically substantiated and introduce accurate definitions and criteria, symbols and units that are used in the field. In other words, the textbooks create and polish the ‘‘language’’ of the field. All this is valid for any science, but is especially important for fire safety science, which is a rapidly developing, multi-disciplinary and widely diverse area, that has benefited from many fields of science and engineeringFfrom physics, chemistry, fluid dynamics and computing to fire law, psychology, and economics. From this point, textbooks in fire engineering could significantly influence the progress in fire safety science. Possibly, the ability of a textbook to provide this ‘‘positive feedback’’ from educational materials to the scientific base of the discipline can be regarded as a clear indication of the highest quality of the book in any field. Enclosure Fire Dynamics by internationally renowned scientists Bjo. rn Karlsson and James G. Quintiere, who is one of the founders of fire safety science, clearly demonstrates this valuable feedback feature. As the authors note in their preface, the purpose of the book is not only to act as course literature for fire engineering students, but also to offer educators in the field, the opportunity to comment on the contents of the course and possibly contribute towards some standardization of both educational material and terminology. I think PII: S 0 3 7 9 - 7 1 1 2 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 3 1 - 5
122
Book review / Fire Safety Journal 37 (2002) 121–123
the authors have achieved all these goals. This together with the feedback mentioned above, makes this book a landmark in the field of fire safety engineering. Enclosure Fire Dynamics covers enclosure fires, which are the main object of fire engineering. It provides a complete description of enclosure fires and how the outbreak of a fire in a compartment causes changes in the environment. This book is a significant contribution to the best literature in fire engineering, including An Introduction in Fire Dynamics by D.D. Drysdale, The SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering, Principles of Fire Behaviour by J.G. Quintiere, Combustion Fundamentals of Fire, edited by G. Cox, Buildings and Fires by T.J. Shields and G.W.H. Silcock, to name only a few. The book consists of ten chapters. The first chapter is the introduction which begins with a brief description of fire safety engineering design and explains the context of the book. Enclosure fire models currently used in fire safety design are introduced and briefly analyzed. A special section discusses the core curriculum of fire safety engineering and places enclosure fires in the context of other topics within the fire safety engineering discipline. An overview of the contents of the book is presented, and the general notation, dimensions and units are explained. Chapters 2–9 are constructed by a unified well-thought method. They begin with the terminology, which introduces the main definitions. Then an introduction explains the gist of the matter, formulates the main objectives of a chapter and briefly discusses the main flow of the text in the chapter. The introduction is followed by the main body of the text, the list of references, and the thoroughly selected problems and suggested answers (except Chapters 2 and 10 devoted to a qualitative description of enclosure fires and computer modelling). This uniform approach is consistent with rigorous, clear-cut and logically strong style of the book and serves well for a reader. Chapter 2 provides a qualitative description of enclosure fires, including associated chemical, physical and fluid dynamics phenomena, and typical fire scenarios. Chapter 3 outlines the methods commonly used to estimate the energy release rate. Fire plumes and flame heights, formation of the upper hot layer are considered in Chapter 4. Analysis of vent flows induced by a fire in an enclosure (Chapter 5) leads to the review of methods in order to predict gas temperatures in both the pre and postflashover phases of well-ventilated fires (Chapter 6). Heat balance and heat transfer mechanisms are discussed in Chapter 7. The next chapter states the conservation laws and introduces some commonly applied assumptions which are used to obtain the characteristics of enclosure fires under different ventilation conditions. Chapter 9 discusses a composition of combustion products and introduces the methods available to estimate the toxic hazards of combustion products and the yield of species. Chapter 10 summarizes how the methods discussed in the previous chapters are used in computer modelling of compartment fires. Zone and CFD models are described. Useful information is given on Internet addresses from where computer models and codes can be downloaded. This chapter is supplemented by an Appendix where fire safety engineering resources on the Internet are given. The other two appendices provide suggestions for experiments and computer labs, and a quick introduction to the input part of the well-known model CFAST.
Book review / Fire Safety Journal 37 (2002) 121–123
123
Of particular value is the clear demonstration of how to derive engineering equations and simple analytical relationships from the conservation laws, how to compare these with the experimental data, and the provision of the hand-calculation procedures and computer models needed to design a building for fire safety. The authors manage to combine optimally strong scientific approach with engineering methods and practical needs. Solutions to many instructive problems, useful application of dimensional analysis and well saturated tables with the most important parameters make this book very convenient for everyone involved in fire engineering. It is not difficult to predict a desk companion fate of this book. Enclosure Fire Dynamics is highly recommended to a wide range of readers from researchers in fire safety science to fire engineers, fire safety professionals and all those who are involved to some extent in fire related activities. Also, this excellent book could be recommended as useful and interesting reading for researchers of different fields, including fluid dynamics of reacting media, combustion, heat and mass transfer, and built environment. Perhaps, this is the best that can be said about the book, the title of which sounds so special. G.M. Makhviladze Centre for Research in Fire and Explosion Studies, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR12HE, UK E-mail address: [email protected] May, 2001