Publications

The Eurocodes are a comprehensive set of standards for structural design. They provide a far more detailed guidance as regards the behaviour of structures under fire conditions, than was previously provided in the National Standards of the individual member states, except maybe those with long tradition in applying performance-based fire safety solutions such as the UK. However - as was discussed in the paper - a designer undertaking fire engineering analysis with the scope of establishing thermal actions on structural elements may find that the Eurocodes do not yet provide a complete guidance on the various aspects of analysis which needs to be carried out (.)

11th SFPE Conference on Performance-Based Codes and Fire Safety Design Methods, Warszawa, 2016

Autorzy: Piotr Smardz

A large fire occurred in a factory manufacturing personal care products. The facility was extensively damaged. The response of the structure and fire results in the building are discussed. The presented analysis includes numerical modelling of the thermal environment within the compartment of the fire origin and subsequently a finite element analysis of heat transfer into the structural elements as well as the analysis of the mechanical response of the whole building structure. The aim of the study was to understand the principal aspects of the response of the main load bearing structure (including post-tensioned girder elements) in a real fire.

Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, 2015 E - PRINT
Autorzy: Roman Wróblewski, Jan Gierczaka, Piotr Smardz, Andrzej Kmita

The recent introduction of structural Eurocodes in the member states of CEN provides engineers with a consistent framework for design verification of the fire resistance periods for loadbearing structural elements. One of the key steps in the verification procedure of the fire resistance achieved by a loadbearing element is the determination of the internal temperature for the structural element being considered. The paper compares results of simplified temperature calculations for steel and composite elements carried out in accordance with EN 1993-1-2 and EN 1994-1-2 as well as predictions of the element's temperature made using a CFD model called Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) with publicly available results of recent fire tests carried out in Europe. The main factors influencing the uncertainty of heat transfer calculations are discussed.

VII Międzynarodowa Konferencja "Bezpieczeństwo Pożarowe Obiektów Budowlanych", Warszawa, 2012
Autor: Piotr Smardz

The presentation focuses on the issues relevant to the proper use of CFD models in fire safety related simulations. It is primarily aimed at fire prevention officers and other professionals who assess fire safety designs based on CFD modeling.

Autorzy: Piotr Smardz

Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) is a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model developed specifically for fire safety applications. FDS is widely used by fire researchers, investigators and engineers.
The study was carried out to assess the accuracy of FDS predictions for a scenario in which smoke spreads from a small compartment into an adjacent larger space, from which it is then extracted using powered ventilation system. Such a fire scenario can be encountered, for example, in a hotel building where bedrooms face onto a feature atrium or in a shopping centre with small retail units opening onto a mall.
In the study, the results of small-scale physical experiments were compared with the FDS predictions. The main parameters for which assessment was made included temperature in the fire compartment and in the smoke reservoir and the height of the smoke layer in the reservoir. The influence of different mesh types was investigated. A review of the existing and ongoing validation work for FDS is also included in the paper, based on the information obtained from published papers and other sources.

MSc dissertation prepared under the supervision of Prof. Vasily Novozhilov (University of Ulster)

Autorzy: Piotr Smardz