In
this simulation, Simtec was used to compute thermal exposure and the
conjugate heat transfer of steel structure in oil pool fire. The
simulation results are validated against experimental measurement with
good agreement.
In
the simulation, no heat release was prescribed. Instead, the fuel supply
into gas phase combustion was fully based on the automatically
calculated fuel evaporation rate, which is governed by the gas
convection, thermal radiation and heat transfer inside the pool, etc.
The computed fuel evaporation rate agrees well with experimental
measurement.
When
the steel column is heated by the fire and hot gas around at the outer
surface, heat will be transferred inside the steel column by conduction.
Thus, the inner surface of the steel column will also become hot. This
will then invoke thermal radiation heat transfer and gas convection in
the column interior empty space. This invoked heat transfer,
particularly the thermal radiation can have significant influence on
temperature distribution in the steel column. In the simulation, all
these processes were considered and computed.
The
simulation domain is 7mx10mx7m and the smallest gas phase cell size is
1.23 cm. Separate solid phase meshes were used to compute the conjugate
3D heat transfer inside all the solid materials which can have
temperature dependent thermal properties. The smallest solid phase mesh
size is 0.5 mm.
More detail is documented in a report which can be available by contacting This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Figure 1 Comparison of computed steel column temperature with measurement at column height of 1.0 meter
Figure 2 Comparison of computed steel column temperature with measurement at column height of 2.0 meter