Models for calculating flame spread on wall lining materials and the resulting heat release rate in a room

An extensive research programme, dealing with fire growth on combustible wall lining materials, has been ongoing in Sweden over the last decade. Several lining materials were tested in bench-scale fire tests in order to derive basic material flammability parameters. The same materials were also tested in a full scale room test and a 1/3 scale room test for two different scenarios, A and B. Scenario A refers to the case where walls and ceiling are covered by the lining material, Scenario B where lining materials are mounted on walls only.

This study utilises the results from these experiments and presents a mathematical model where material properties derived from standardised bench-scale tests are used as input data. The model predicts fire growth in the full- or 1/3 scale tests, in two different scenarios (A and B), and consists of sub-models for calculating the rate of heat release, gas temperatures, radiation to walls, wall surface temperatures and flame spread on the wall lining material.

A thermal theory of wind-aided flame spread on thick solids is examined and solutions are given and analysed for flame spread velocities under ceilings. Both numerical and analytical solutions are discussed.

The analytical solutions can be used to evaluate the flame spread propensity of materials and thus, whether a certain material is likely to go to flashover or not in the Room Corner Test. More generally, the solutions can be used to estimate whether a material will spread flame in a variety of concurrent flow flame spread scenarios. Results from the analytical solutions are compared with experimental flashover data for 22 materials, showing a good agreement.

The numerical solutions are incorporated into a simple room fire model. The results from the numerical model are compared with experiments on 22 materials tested in the full scale room for Scenario A. Comparisons for Scenario B are made with 10 materials tested in the 1/3 scale room. The results show reasonably good agreement for most materials between the model and the experiments.