A Comparison between the Wickström Compartment Fire Model with Experiments and other Calculation Methods

Sammanfattning: An Excel spreadsheet application has been developed for calculating pre-flashover compartment fire temperature according to the method described in the book ”Temperature Calculation in Fire Safety Engineering” written by Wickström 2016. Here called the Wickström Compartment Fire Model, WCFM, which is a model where the surrounding structure can be assumed either as lumped heat or as semi-infinite.The excel spreadsheet is user friendly and time efficient. The model has been used to calculate temperature of gas layer which is compared with results from experiments and calculations made with the alternative calculation methods MQH, FDS and CFAST. The compartment fire chosen for comparisons were performed in a normal sized room with a door opening. The walls, floor and ceiling of the room consisted of the same material but changed between the tests. Four materials were used: light weight concrete, uninsulated steel and insulated steel on inside or outside.   The results of the comparison show that the temperature calculated with WCFM follows both the experiments and FDS temperature curves well for three of the tests. The test with light weight concrete differs from the results where WCFM in the end stabilises at a lower temperature. The difference that occurred between WCFM, the experiments and FDS, for the other three tests is mainly in the beginning of the tests. WCFM predicts temperatures which are as an average 100 ℃ higher or lower than what measured depending on test setup. In the end of the test WCFM, the experiments and FDS coincide and give essentially the same final temperatures. The temperature from MQH and CFAST differ considerably from the experiments in all the tests.