Experimental and numerical investigation of fire hazard of vertical greenery systems

Tharindu Karunaratne, Shousou Han, Denvid Lau, Cheuk Lun Chow

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This study investigates the fire hazard of vertical greenery systems (VGS) with experiments performed at the bench-scale and medium-scale followed by numerical simulations. Bench-scale tests were conducted in cone-calorimeter while the medium-scale experiments consisted of a test rig with dimensions 100 cm × 30 cm × 3 cm (height × width × depth). 28 cone-calorimeter tests were conducted under four cone heat flux levels, which represented four woodwool moisture content (MC) levels (between 8% to 20%) and four bulk densities (BD) of the fuel bed (between 50 kg/m3 to 100 kg/m3). Cone test results revealed that flammability was increased with the reduction of MC and BD under four flammability parameters, namely, the ignitability, combustibility, flame duration (FD) and consumability. The medium-scale experiments conducted with three different MCs and three different BDs showed that the UFS rate increases with the decrease of MC and BD. Average UFS rate was over 3.48 cm/s while the maximum temperatures along the fuel bed reached values over 700 0C in all scenarios. The medium-scale experiment scenarios were numerically simulated in the fire dynamic simulator (FDS) and the predicted upward fire spread rate showed good agreement with only slight deviations. However, the temperature recordings at different heights were overpredicted.
Original languageEnglish
Article number110004
Number of pages19
JournalJournal of Building Engineering
Volume95
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Jun 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Elsevier Ltd

Keywords

  • Vertical greenery system
  • Green wall
  • Flammability
  • Upward fire spread
  • Fire dynamic simulator

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