This paper presents a CFD model for fire and smoke generation inside a cargo compartment in case of fire. The model can provide information on smoke transport under various conditions. The flexibility of the model allows the simulation of numerous fire scenarios in a short period of time. The conservation equations of heat, mass and momentum transfer were solved in the FLUENT software suite for an advanced CFD simulation. The model formulation is given in detail including a description of the wall treatment of the equations, which was found to be of major importance for accurate heat transfer predictions. In order to validate the whole procedure, the results of the simulations with FLUENT are compared with experimental data for the 707 cargo compartment and also the results of a CFD code developed by Sandia National Laboratories. In order to verify the sensitivity of the results three successively refined grids were created to allow for a “grid refinement study”. Grid convergence was ensured by comparison of the results on the two finest grids. It is shown that the proposed method provides accurate results.

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