Numerical model of a large-scale oxygen consumption fire calorimeter

The present study introduces a volumetric heat and mass source model to investigate the flow field inside the hood and duct system and optimize the sampling technique in a large scale fire calorimeter. The model was validated using experimental measurements of the oxygen depletion factor, gas temperature and heat release rate. The calculated heat release rates determined using the CFD model were in good agreement with the experiments with the maximum discrepancy between the simulations and experiments being less than 5%. A series of CFD simulations were performed to examine the effects of sampling location, and the number of sampling points on the uncertainty of the heat release calculation. Detailed flow characteristics were analyzed to understand the complicated internal duct flow.