NEHRP Clearinghouse
- Title
- Meeting of the UJNR Panel on Fire Research and Safety (15th). Held in San Antonio, Texas on March 1-7, 2000. Volume 2.
- File
- PB2001101517.pdf
- Author(s)
- Bryner, S. L.
- Source
- November 2000, 202 p.
- Identifying Number(s)
- NISTIR-6588-V2
- Abstract
- Post-earthquake fires are considered to be one of the important factors that enlarge the damage when a densely inhabited urban area is hit by a severe earthquake. It will be necessary to effectively mitigate the damage caused by such post-earthquake fires. Several models are already available in Japan for the purpose of predicting the fire spread in urban areas. It can be said that these models were developed based on the model so-called 'Hamada formula,' which was introduced by Hamada, Emeritus of University of Tokyo more than 50 years ago. The Hamada model was constructed mainly based on the statistical data on the spread of the urban fires in the past, which frequently burned Japanese cities into ashes, as a function of wind velocity. However, now that the conditions of the cities, including building materials and constructions, have extremely changed, it is doubtful that the validity of the statistically-based model still remains. It is considered to be necessary to develop a physically-based model for the better assessment of the post-earthquake fire loss in modern cities. In this study, a model for predicting fire spread from a building to another was explored in a simple configuration as the first step. The ultimate goal of this study is to construct a model which is capable of predicting the fire spread in the cities in which a number of houses are arbitrarily located.
- Keywords
- ; Fire safety; Fire tests; Models; Meeting; Fire extinguishing agents; Urban areas; Metropolitan areas; Fire retardants; Building fires; Earthquakes