Numerical Fire Spread Simulation Based on Material Pyrolysis—An Application to the CHRISTIFIRE Phase 1 Horizontal Cable Tray Tests

A general procedure is described to generate material parameter sets to simulate fire propagation in horizontal cable tray installations. Cone Calorimeter test data are processed in an inverse modelling approach. Here, parameter sets are generated procedurally and serve as input for simulations conducted with the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). The simulation responses are compared with the experimental data and ranked based on their fitness. The best fitness was found for a test condition of 50 kW/m2. Low flux conditions 25 kW/m2 and less exhibited difficulties to be accurately simulated. As a validation step, the best parameter sets are then utilised to simulate fire propagation within a horizontal cable tray installation and are compared with experimental data. It is important to note, the inverse modelling process is focused on the Cone Calorimeter and not aware of the actual validation step. Despite this handicap, the general features in the fire development can be reproduced, however not exact. The fire in the tray simulation extinguishes earlier and the total energy release is slightly higher when compared to the experiment. The responses of the material parameter sets are briefly compared with a selection of state of the art procedures.