Study on flashover in an open kitchen fire by nonlinear dynamics

Abstract

There are concerns on open kitchen fires in small flats of tall residential buildings. Flashover should be avoided in providing fire safety. It is believed that flashover of a compartment fire is a nonlinear physical process. In this article, nonlinear dynamics was used to study flashover in an example open kitchen fire. The mathematical model developed earlier by taking the fire compartment as a thermal system with a hot "smoke and air" layer and a cool air layer was taken as the simulation tool. The two-layer zone model was simplified by taking the smoke layer thickness at a constant value. The compartment fire was then studied with only one variable on the hot smoke layer temperature. The model was programmed in symbolic mathematics software. The single variable on smoke or hot air temperature is then analyzed for system stability. An example open kitchen was selected to illustrate the concept. Control parameters for flashover to occur have been identified for providing fire safety to open kitchens.