A Modified Two-Zone Model for Predicting Heat Release Rate of Pool Fire in a Confined Space

Abstract The heat release rate of the fire source is one of the most important parameters for the fire hazards analysis in nuclear power plants. For a fire in a confined compartment, the oxygen concentration has a critical effect on the fire heat release rate under oxygen-deficient situation. In the present work, a modified two-zone fire model was developed to predict the pool fire heat release rate in the oxygen-deficient situation. A simple model estimating the effect of the oxygen concentration on the fire heat release rate was incorporated into two-zone model, CFAST. Furthermore, the conservation of fuel mass was also taken into consideration. Experimental results from three fire experiments of pool fire under the oxygen-deficient situation in the literature available were used to validate the reliability of the modified two-zone model. The oxygen concentration in the compartment was decreased and became oxygen-deficient condition due to the mechanical ventilation. Compared with the original CFAST model, the accuracy of predicting pool fire under oxygen-deficient situation was increased considerably by the modified model, especially for the pool fire at steady under oxygen-deficient situation. In comparison with the experimental data, the cosine similarities of the three heat release rate curves were all over 0.95 and the max relative error of the burning time was 41.9%, which is significantly lower than that of the original two-zone model prediction.