Numerical simulation of the ventilation effect on fire characteristics and detections in an aircraft cargo compartment

•Fire in an aircraft cargo compartment under different ventilation rates simulated.•Fire characteristics of aircraft cargo compartment at early stage acquired.•The results are of benefit to the design of multi-sensor for aircraft fire detection. Previous works neglected the aircraft cargo compartment ventilation, however, in many real cases, the ventilation condition is expected to alter the fire characteristics which can affect the activation of fire detector. Numerical modeling of a DC-10 cargo compartment fire with different ventilation rates is conducted using Fire Dynamics Simulator. The simulation results of ventilation rate 11.33m3/min are compared with Federal Aviation Administration test data, revealing that the numerical model can do well in predicting the fire characteristics under various ventilation conditions. Five scenarios with the ventilation rates at 0, 5.66, 11.33, 16.99, 22.65m3/min are simulated to explore the ventilation effect on the fire characteristics (including the ceiling temperature, the light transmission and the CO/CO2 concentrations). The variation of fire characteristics under various ventilation rate conditions is presented and discussed in both the stable period after 180s as well as the initial stage within 60s of the fire occurrence. These results are helpful to the multi-senor design to meet the “one-minute-rule” requirements of fire detections in aircraft cargo compartment.