Analysis of Fire Propagation in Electrical Cable Tray Using the FLASH-CAT Model

In this study, a numerical method for fire modeling of electrical cable tray fires was developed for the purpose of improving fire safety in Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). The simulation model was selected from cable fire experiments conducted under open atmosphere and enclosed compartment conditions from the fire propagation in elementary multi-compartment scenarios (PRISME) campaign, an international cooperative project of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of OECD. To solve the computational fluid dynamics problem of heat and smoke flow caused by fire, a numerical solution is obtained based on the Naver-Stoke's equation, which is suitable for low-speed heat flow. The governing equations consist of the mass, momentum, and energy conservation equations of the fluid and the ideal state equation as the governing equations, and the heat release rate per unit area, fire duration, and physical properties of the cable are considered as boundary conditions to perform the cable fire simulation analysis. The heat release rate curve for cable fires was assumed to be the FLASH-CAT model presented in NUREG/CR-7010. Based on the experimental results of cable fire scenarios, we developed a fire modeling procedure and applied various cable fire models to successfully develop an analysis method that is in good agreement with the experimental results.