Experimental Validation of the FDS Simulations of Smoke and Toxic Gas Concentrations

This publication presents an experimental validation of FDS simulations of PMMA, wood, heptane, and toluene fires in a test compartment. The numerical predictions of smoke and gases (CO, CO2 and O2) concentrations, vertical temperature profile, smoke layer height, and visibility are compared against experimental results. Simulations and visualizations were done using FDS and Smokeview version 4.0.5. The results showed that the simulations of CO2 and O2 concentrations and vertical temperature profiles were in good agreement with the measurements. The agreement of the CO concentrations was better in case of toluene and heptane than in case of PMMA and wood. In case of gas concentrations, strong dependency on the grid cell size was observed. For heptane and toluene fuels, the use of default values of Smokeview and FDS leads to good predictions of the view inside a fire compartment. For solid fuels (wood and PMMA) producing smoke that is more gray in colour, the necessary adjustments of the Gray Level visualization parameter are given in order to match the visualizations and video images of the exit sign obscuration.