Fire dynamics includes the study of the basic chemical, physical, and thermodynamic phenomena involved in fire development, behaviour, propagation and suppression. Concepts from chemistry and physics, coupled with the fundamentals of heat and mass transfer, are used to understand how structures and components will react under fire conditions, as well as to characterize ignition, fire growth and spread, and fire severity in various environments. Research also involves the study of the interactions between a fire and its environment, including aspects of fire ventilation, suppression, heat transfer from fires and transition from fire to explosion.
Compartment Fires | Fire Suppression | Pool Fires
Fire Suppression
Water Sprays
Practical aspects of fire suppression and fire-hoseline interactions are studied through joint research and training exercises with municipal and naval fire fighter personnel. Tests have been performed in abandoned houses to study residential sprinkler effectiveness. The effects of different suppression agents and hose strategies (i.e. wide vs. narrow angle, direct vs. reflected application) on the thermal environment during suppression of enclosure fires has been studied in the University of Waterloo Live Fire Research Facility, as well as in field fire experiments. Through full-scale research in realistic operating conditions, training modules are delivered directly back to fire service personnel demonstrating key elements of suppression methodologies and facilitating better explanations of the complex interactions between their suppression activities and the thermal environment in a burning structure.
Chemical Inhibiters
Sustainable Suppression Agents
Pool Fires
Sandia Helium Plumes
Medium Scale Pool Fires
The medium-scale pool fire research program has involved both experimental and numerical investigations into liquid fire behaviour. On the experimental side, flow visualization, two component LDA and thermocouples have been used to simultaneously measure temperatures and velocities in two orthogonal directions at over 125 stations in 0.3 m diameter (medium-scale) acetone (radiative) and methanol (non-radiating) pool fires. Turbulence quantities and estimates of mean vorticity have been derived from the data.
Future research includes investigations of fire radiation and soot (particulate) formation, potentially using new diagnostics for soot characterization, as well as radiation and species concentration measurements. Interpretation of the results has led to increased understanding of the detailed physical structure and mechanisms of air entrainment at the base of the fire.