Research Proposal

Effect of Wind on Façade Fire Propagation

G.K.U.S. Gunarathne
170190U
Supervisors:
Prof. S.M.A. Nanayakkara
Dr. Pasindu Weerasinghe

17th January 2021

Department of Civil Engineering
Faculty of Engineering
UNIVERSITY OF MORATUWA - SRI LANKA
Table of Contents

1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….. 2
2. Problem Statement…………………………………………………………………………3
3. Significance of the Research……………………………………………………………….4
4. Scope of the Study…………………………………………………………………………4
5. Aims and Objectives……………………………………………………………………….4
6. Proposed Methodology…………………………………………………………………….5
7. Proposed Work Plan………………………………………………………………………..6
8. Resources Plan……………………………………………………………………………..7
9. References………………………………………………………………………………… 8

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1. INTRODUCTION

Protection against fire is critical for any building. Elements of a building should be able to provide
adequate resistance if they are subjected to a fire. Façade is one such element of a building. Façade
is the outermost part of a building and it is the boundary between the building and external
environment (Nguyen, 2016). Façade fires are critical because they can spread quicky throughout
the full height of the building: specially in high-rise buildings. Façade fires also poses a risk of
spreading to nearby structures.

Grenfell tower fire is one of the recent incidents of façade fires. This happened on 17 th of January
2017 in London, killing 72 people. The fire started on the fourth floor. The façades which were
installed in the previous year, caught fire when the flames ejected out from the openings and the
fire spread throughout the building rapidly (McKenna, 2019). Events like these emphasize the
importance of sound understanding about the façades in fire situations.

Several research studies have been carried out to study the behaviour of the façade fires (Hu, 2017;
Hu, 2016, Lu, 2020; Sun, 2020). Lu et al. (2020) have carried out an experimental study to
understand the variation of flame behaviour ejected out from an opening with the elevation of the
opening. Hu et al (2017) have published their research on the effect of wind for the flame height
ejected from an opening. An experimental study by Hu et al. (2016) presents the results about the
temperature evolution inside a compartment with fire.

Building codes have presented requirements for a fire resistive design of façades. According to the
codes there are two methods to demonstrate the fire resistivity of a façade. They are, satisfying the
material and fire resistance rating specified by the codes or passing a full scale test specified by the
codes. However, these code does not consider the effect of wind when determining the fire
resistivity of façades.

The effect of wind in façades fire is not a widely studied topic. The fire safety of façades often
studied excluding the effect of wind. However, wind and fire are contributing to each other.
Therefore, it is essential to study the effect of wind in façade fires to improve the overall fire safety

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of the building. This research will be focused on studying the effect of wind on fire propagation
and developing numerical models to simulate the fire behaviour when the wind is present.

Numerical modeling of façade fire can be carried out using Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) and
Pyrosim software. FDS is a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) modeling software for fluid flows
in fire. The modeling is done based on Navier-Stokes equation.(McGrattan, 2017) It is a freely
available software developed by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of United
States and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.(McGrattan, 2017) Pyrosim is a graphical
user interface (GUI) for the FDS. These software require a high computational power.

Even though the software are a fast and convenient method to model the behaviour of physical
objects and events, the credibility of the results cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, it is important to
validate the results obtained by the software through experimental results or manual calculations.
In this research results from the numerical models will be validated by experimental results.
Required experimental results are expected to be obtained from an experiment carried out by the
University of Melbourne.

2. PROBLEM STATEMENT

There are very few research studies carried out on the effect of wind on façade fires. However, the
impact of the wind can influence the façade fires to a considerable extent. Therefore, there is a
clear need to study and model the effect of wind on façade fires and asses the current methods of
practice based on the results.

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3. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH

Currently the building codes do not take the effect of wind in the façade fire safety requirements.
Therefore, even though the façades are designed according to the codes, there is an unforeseen
element of risk in fire situations when the wind is present. The results of this study can be used to
identify the fire safety of the façades when the wind is preset both in local and global context. This
will be useful mostly for high rise buildings.

4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY

• In this research, the validated numerical model will only be developed for a specific façade type.
• The experimental data will be based on the experiments done according to Australian Standards.
• Numerical models will be developed only using Fire Dynamic Simulator and Pyrosim.

5. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Aim
Studying the effect of wind on fire propagation and developing numerical models to simulate the
fire behaviour when the wind is present

Objectives
• Developing a numerical model to evaluate behaviour of the façade in fire when the wind is
present and validating the model with experimental data
• Develop numerical models to evaluate the behaviour of façades with different materials in fire
when the wind is present and analyzing the results
• Gather information about the local practice and provide recommendations based on the results
obtained by the numerical models.

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6. PROPOSED METHODOLOGY

The flow chart below illustrates the proposed methodology of the research study. It is designed to
achieve the objectives and ultimately the aim of the research.

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7. PROPOSED WORK PLAN

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8. RESOURCES PLAN

• Human resources – Supervisors and research assistants

• Software – Fire Dynamic Simulator (open source) and Pyrosim (student license)
• Literature – Online databases, University of Moratuwa Library, Journals
• Tutorials – Online tutorials for software
• Technology – High performance cloud computing facility

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9. REFERENCES

Hu, L., Hu, K., & Sun, X. (2017). Facade flame height ejected from an opening of fire compartment
under external wind. Fire Safety Journal 92, 151-158.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2017.06.008
Hu, L., Ren, F., Hu, K., Tang, F., & Lu, K. (2016). An experimental study on temperature evolution
inside compartment with fire growth and flame ejection through an opening under external
wind, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute (2955-2962). Elsevier Inc.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.proci.2016.06.069
Lu, K., Wang, Z., Ding, Y., Wang, J., Zhang, J., Delichatsios, M.A., & Hu, L. (2020). Flame
behavior from an opening at different elevations on the façade wall of a fire compartment,
Proceedings of the Combustion Institute (1-9). Elsevier Inc.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proci.2020.07.094
McGrattan, K., Hostikka, S., McDermott, R., Floyd, J., Vanella, M., Weinschenk, C., & Overhalt,
K., (2017). Fire Dynamics Simulator User’s Guide (6). National Institute of Standards and
Technology. http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1019
McKenna, S.T., Jones, N., Peck, G., Dickens, K., Pawelec, W., Oradei, S., Harris, S., Stec, A.A.,
& Hull, T.R. (2019). Fire behaviour of modern façade materials – Understanding the
Grenfell Tower fire. Journal of Hazardous Materials 368, 115-123.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2018.12.077
Nguyen, K.T.Q., Weerasinghe, P., Mendis, P., Ngo, T., & Barnett, J. (2016). Performance of
modern building façades in fire: a comprehensive review. Electronic Journal of Structural
Engineering 16(1), 69-85.
Sun, X., HU, H., Zhang, X., Ren, F., Yang, Y., & Fang, X. (2020). Flame behavior from opening
of a compartment with ambient back-roof wind passing through the roof: Experiments and
similarity analysis. Combustion and Flame 220, 312-327.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.combustflame.2020.07.001

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