Experimental and Modeling Uncertainty Considerations for Determining the First Item Ignited in a Compartment Using a Bayesian Method

Fire scene reconstruction and determining the fire evolution (i.e. item-to-item ignition events) using the post-fire compartment is an extremely difficult task because of the time-integrated nature of the observed damages. Bayesian methods are ideal for making inferences amongst hypotheses given observations and are able to naturally incorporate uncertainties. A Bayesian methodology for determining probabilities to items that may have initiated the fire in a compartment from damage signatures is developed. Exercise of this methodology requires uncertainty quantification of these damage signatures. A simple compartment configuration was used to quantify the uncertainty in damage predictions by Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), and a compartment evolution program, JT-risk as compared to experimentally derived damage signatures. Surrogate sensors spaced within the compartment use heat flux data collected over the course of the simulations to inform damage models. Experimental repeatability showed up to 4% uncertainty in damage signatures between replicates . Uncertainties for FDS and JT-risk ranged from 12% up to 32% when compared to experimental damages. Separately, the evolution physics of a simple three fuel package problem with surrogate damage sensors were characterized in a compartment using experimental data, FDS, and JT-risk predictions. An simple ignition model was used for each of the fuel packages. The Bayesian methodology was exercised using the damage signatures collected, cycling through each of the three fuel packages, and combined with the previously quantified uncertainties. Only reconstruction using experimental data was able to confidently predict the true hypothesis from the three scenarios.