Thermal Analysis in Fire-Resistance Furnace Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • Fire resistance rating of building construction elements is defined under fire-resistance test furnace. The geometry and shape of fire-resistance furnaces is not defined by any prescriptive document, being necessary to comply thermally with specified nominal fire curves, such as ISO 834 or hydrocarbon [1,2]. This research work intends to measure temperatures inside furnace volume, using sixteen plate thermocouples to compare average temperature in four planes. Those planes are compared with reference thermocouple which is responsible for controlling furnace operation, see figure 1. Three tests were performed, the first two running with ISO 834, during 45 minutes and the last one running with hydrocarbon curve, during 30 minutes. Experimental results demonstrate that relative temperature differences are smaller than 30 % in the initial test stage, being smaller than 5 %, after 500 [s] until the end of the tests. The numerical simulations were performed using Fluent CFD, using the structured finite volume mesh method. The Eddy Dissipation Model (EDM) was used for chemical species transport and reacting flow. The governing equations for mass, momentum and energy were solved for the three dimensional unsteady incompressible flow, with radiative heat transfer and turbulence model. The numerical results agree well with experimental results, being the relative temperature difference smaller than 5% for each nominal test. Numerical simulation also reveals the localized effect of each burner.

publication date

  • January 1, 2009