Background
Cars are changing in order to become environmental friendly. This concern the type of material used in the car to reduce weight and it concerns the type of fuel that is used in the cars. Both may lead to different fire scenarios, if a car is ignited due to a reason or another, as e.g. by technical failure of the electric system in the car , arson or external fires close to the cars. It is a fact that e.g. a number of large car park fires have happened during the last years, as in Liverpool very recently. In a former master thesis such fire scenarios in car parks have been modelled in FDS using a very simplified normal and hydrogen fueled car model. In order to develop better prediction tools to prevent similar fires in the future the following project is suggested.
Project objective and scope
The project develops a more sophisticated car model considering the new types and amounts of combustible materials used and different engines that drive the future cars. Here battery driven cars and fuel cell driven cars fueled by hydrogen maybe considered as well as other alternative fuels such as compressed natural gas and others. The detailed car model will simulate fire spread within a modern car under open and closed conditions. Concern may be taken to explicit model the fuel behavior of such cars, as e.g. hydrogen is stored under high pressure and the pressure tank is secured by a TPRD that releases the gas when the temperature near the tank as typically 110 C.
The scenarios will be modelled using FDS