Modelling fire growth and toxic gas formation

The enormous complexity of the coupled phenomena of fire growth and toxic gas generation presents a huge challenge to predictive methodologies. Their prediction is hampered by the fact that the combustible materials involved in real fires are typically poorly defined, not having benefited from the detailed studies undertaken in the wider combustion community on idealised fuels. Moreover, the often significant effects of finite-rate chemistry greatly complicate representations of gas-phase combustion. Despite these difficulties, significant progress is now being made towards establishing more robust modelling frameworks. In particular a number of advanced CFD-based approaches are being developed which have the potential to include key phenomena influencing fire yields of toxic gas such as carbon monoxide. Further progress is constrained on the need for some degree of empirical calibration in simpler models, and by computational demands and a lack of knowledge of relevant input parameters amongst the more advanced approaches. None has been yet extensively tested in fire applications, and the bulk of modelling activity remains confined to the research domain.