International Collaborative Project to Evaluate Fire Models for Nuclear Power Plant Applications: Summary of 5th Meeting

Published

September 1, 2003

Author(s)

M K. Dey, Anthony Hamins, S Miles

Abstract

The 5th Meeting of the International Collaborative Project to Evaluate Fire Models for Nuclear Power Plant Applications was hosted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, U.S. Department of Commerce and held at NIST headquaters at Gaithersburg, Maryland on May 2 and 3, 2002. The organizing Committee for the meeting included Moni Dey from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (U.S. NRC), and Anthony Hamins from NIST. Thirty three participants from five countries attended the international meeting. The purpose of the 5th meeting was mainly to discuss the results of Benchmark Exercise #2, Pool Fires in Large Halls, conducted in the project. Validation and regulatory applications of fire models were also presented and discussed in the meeting. The results presented for Part I of Bench mark Exercise #2 were generally quite encouraging. While the general, qualitative, nature of the experiments had been captured in the simulations, a number of sisues had arisen. Furthermore, the parametric analysis undertaken by a number of participants had yielded useful information. Different conclusions have been drawn on the most significant, or controlling, parameters. The combined effect of the choice of heat of combustion, combustion efficiency and radiative fraction was found to be an important factor. The validation and application of several, divrse fire models, ranging from empirical equations organized in worksheets to zone, lumped-parameter, and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) models, were presented and discussed at the meeting. The discussions emphasized the need to validate and determine the accuracy of such models, especially to understand the differences in the predictive capabilities and margins of uncertainty for the different types of models over a range of fire scenarios. This information is needed to establish safety factors and implement effective applications of these models in a regulatory framework. The need to define credible fire scenarios and generate data for fire sources, especially cable tray fires, was emphasized.

Citation

NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR) -

NIST Pub Series

NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR)

Pub Type

NIST Pubs

Keywords

Benchmarking, fire models, fire safety, international collaboration, nuclear power, verification and validation

Citation

Dey, M. , Hamins, A. and Miles, S. (2003), International Collaborative Project to Evaluate Fire Models for Nuclear Power Plant Applications: Summary of 5th Meeting, NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD (Accessed July 18, 2024)