Simulation of Fire in Super High-Rise Hospitals Using Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS)

Background:
Among various types of disasters, fire constitutes a significant threat to life and property in urban and rural areas. Protection the hospitals against fire is very important due to presence of disable persons, lack of awareness and expensive devices and equipments in the hospitals. The present study was aimed to fire simulation in the super high-rise hospital.

Methods:
This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in a super high-rise hospital (17 floor) in 2018-2019. The project was divided into two steps: 1) Preparation of 3D model of the hospital using 3D CAD Modeling Software; 2) The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique is used to predict the fire dynamics (smoke propagation, temperature distribution, heat release rate and total energy) in the hospital using the Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS).

Results:
The fire simulation results showed that after 10 seconds from the onset of fire in the third floor of the hospital with the intensity of 1620/79 kW, the temperature, total energy and heat release rate reaches 87 °C, 5640 kW and 937 kW, respectively. According to the simulation results, after 600 seconds, the temperature, total energy and heat release rate were 610 °C, 928 kW and 933 kW, respectively, which the fire had reached to an uncontrollable stage.

Conclusion:
By correction of staircases and elevator shaft, the spread of fire can be controlled effectively. To improve the level of fire risk and appropriate actions during emergency situation in super high-rise hospital, required measures especially in the area of containment and extinguishment including buildings design for smoke control, fire alarm and extinguisher systems.

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