Fire Safety in Buildings Essay Example

Fire Safety in Buildings Essay Example Fire Safety in Buildings Essay Fire Safety in Buildings Essay Essay Topic: To Build a Fire Fire Safety in Buildings Name: Lecturer: Course: : Date: Fire Safety in Buildings In today’s world, it is essential for people to take the necessary precautions to ensure that their safety is not compromised. Fire has been known to destroy a lot of property. In addition to that, many people have succumbed to fire so many times. This has made it top priority for fire safety regulations to be followed. Buildings should be protected most of all as people are always in them. They serve as homes, restaurants and living space for people. It is estimated that there are at least six fires in a week in the United States. With the number of fires in buildings, increasing every day, people need to be more careful. It is important that people take extra precautions to ensure that their lives are secure. This is why most buildings are fit with equipment that protects them from fires. There are sprinkler systems to fire extinguishers. All these things are meant to either slow down fire or completely put it out. It is also important to find ways to reduce fire occurrence . This is why a number of researchers that have written papers that talk about the safety measures of fires in buildings. ‘Smoke and fire in building Atria’ a paper written by Robert N. Meroney and David Banks, is about fire in building atria. The writers talk about how fire starts in atria and ways in which they can be contained. Atria are constructed in buildings to provide air and sunlight. Since these areas are in direct sunlight and climatic conditions, there is special need for them to look after carefully. The wind environment makes it particularly hard for fires to be controlled. This is because since the atrium is in an open area the environmental elements make it had to contain the fire. It is therefore important for fire protection engineers to find special ways to contain fires in this area. Using different buildings as the sample study, the authors were able to find how an atrium affects fire (Meroney Banks, 2004). A case study of a building atrium was made to show how fire spreads through a building using wind as a factor that helps it to spread. It was found that depending on the design of the atrium in a building, a fire could spread either too fast or slow. Enclosed empty spaces are considered as too restrictive when a fire occurs. Thus, it is advisable that newer models of atrium should be connected partially or fully to adjacent spaces. It ensures that there is less space for wind to enter the building and control the fire. The authors came up with a number of solutions to lessen fires that are caused by atria in buildings. For one it was not advisable for buildings to have simple zone models. It was found that these models impinged smoke on the ceiling and consequently produced wall jets that made fires spread more rapidly. Secondly, there should be a field modeling study that will ensure that incase of a fire the building will be secure. This is also done to ensure that smoke can be detected in a building faster thereby lowering the risk of a fire occurring. The study also highlighted the importance of a hybrid combination of physical, zone and field model. This ensures that a fire engineer has adequate knowledge of how to put out a fire in a building without the weather influencing this decision. Another study carried out by Francine Battaglia, Ronald Rehm, Howard Baum, Mohammed Hassan and Kozo Saito looked at the different paradigms of combustion. All of which are influenced by circulation flows. The study hoped to show how fire patterns are influenced by circulation of air. The study was purely theoretical with the researchers concentrating on the elements of fire. They looked at the gases that support combustion under a controlled environment. They wanted to learn more about the patterns of fire. They also wanted to find out how combustion is affected by different elements. The governing factors that they used are Froude, swirl and Reynolds’ numbers. Using these parameters, they were able to find how combustion takes place. From the study, they were able to examine the effect of a swirl on combustion-driven flows. They were able to find how much buoyancy is needed to make a fire burn. Several discrepancies on the length and mixing were cited in the paper and subsequent researches. This was because of experimental conditions that the study was based. Depending on the way in which the swirl is imposed on the flame brings these differences. The rotating device and its position to the flame is also of importance. After analyzing the fire whirls, it was found that there are certain conditions that a fire has to have for it to burn. It was found that there was a correlation between swirl and combustion. This study shed light to how boundary conditions play a major role in the behavior of a swirling flame. The experiment also addressed obvious gaps in parametric space unlike previous studies (Battaglia et. al., 2001). In the paper, ‘Thermal and Fluid dynamic structures of a Laboratory-scale fixed-frame fire-whirl, researchers Mohammed Hassan, Helali A. and Kozo Saito tried to explain fires even further. They felt that a fire whirl was very destructive during fires. Their study was purely based in the laboratory. They used the help of different apparatus in the laboratory so that the experiment did not go out of hand. Using different propane, JP-8 and diesel fuel burning separately, they were able to study how a fire whirl behaves in different conditions. The velocity of the fires changed with different conditions. From the experiment, they were able to calculate their findings numerically. They found out that there was a two-dimensional azimuthal velocity profiles. The type of fuel used is also of importance as fires burnt in different velocities. They were measured by PIV each at different heights. The fires all burned at different velocities when exposed to different conditions (Hassan et. al., 2001). The researchers also wrote a paper titled, ‘Propagation characteristics of flame spread over propanol, butanol and JP8.’ The study was to show how a flame spread over the three fuels would behave over different ranges of temperature and different amounts of fuel. The range of temperature was between eight to thirty degrees Celsius. The different amounts of fuel were between five to forty millimeters. The flame spread pattern in the tray that was wider tended to be more pulsating than the narrower trays. The narrower trays had a tendency of forming a pseudo-uniform, which meant that the tray width had a significant effect on the flame pattern. The flame of the JP8 fuel was found to be different from that of the other fuels in the study. It required higher ignition energy than those of the alcohols used in the study. JP8 fuel showed an unsteady mode of flame compared to the others (Hassan Saito, 2003). The experiment parameters are tray size, fuel chemical structure, and fuel ignition temperature and ignition source. The results from the alcohol-based fuels showed minor differences as compare to those of JP8. The tray’s size played a major role in the experiment. They found that detailed flow and temperature structure played an important role in how a flame reacts over fuel. They recommended that understanding how a fire spreads over a liquid fuel surface at certain conditions is important. ‘Flow Structure of a fixed frame type fire whirl’ was a study to find out how fire whirl reacts. The study was both experimental and numerical. The frame was made up of two cylinders placed in an off-center l0ocation. It was found that at different heights the fire whirl has a transient 2-D radial and a tangential velocity. The fire whirl creates its own unique tangential velocity and this in turn increases its radial flow to approximately three times its width. There was a qualitative agreement between the calculated and measured velocity. This means that the proposed model captured all the required characteristics (Hassan et. al., 2000). Reference Meroney R. N., Banks D. (2004). Smoke and fire in building Atria. Wind Effects on Buildings and Urban Environment. Battaglia F., Rehm R., Baum H., Hassan M., Saito K (November 11-16, 2001). Paradigms of combustion-driven Flows with circulation. Asme Publication Htd. Hassan, M. I., Helali, A., Saito, K. (January 01, 2001). Thermal and Fluid Dynamic Structures of a Laboratory-Scale Fixed-Frame Fire-Whirl. Asme Publications Htd, 4, 129-132. Hassan, M. I., Saito, K. (2003). Propagation characteristics of flame spread over propanol, butanol and JP8. Asme Publication. Hassan, M. I., Kuwana, K., Wang, F., Saito, K. (2000). Flow Structure of a Fixed-Frame Type Fire Whirl. University of Kentucky.