Title: Fire investigation on a car park

Authors: Cristina D'Angelo

Addresses: Municipality of Rome, Piazzale di Porta Metronia 2 Roma, Italy

Abstract: This work deals with the numerical back analysis of a fire developed in a pilotis floor on the ground level of a multi-storey residential building. Several parked cars were burned and the building was significantly damaged. The most probable cause of the fire was the ignition of a car due to arson, and since the ceiling was covered by polystyrene, the fire quickly spread laterally and transmitted the heat to the other cars. Fire investigation was devoted to ascertain whether the fire was due to fault or arson and, in case of arson, if the fire started from one or more cars. The reconstruction of the fire presented herein is based on both results of tests made on polystyrene panels of the pilotis floor, and fire dynamics sub-models. The combination of tests and fire dynamics made possible a plausible back analysis of the event.

Keywords: fire investigations; park fires; CFD; computational fluid dynamics; FDS; fire dynamics simulator; numerical simulation; fire tests; car parks; multi-storey buildings; residential buildings; arson; car fires; polystyrene panels.

DOI: 10.1504/IJFE.2016.075997

International Journal of Forensic Engineering, 2016 Vol.3 No.1/2, pp.30 - 44

Received: 08 Oct 2015
Accepted: 16 Feb 2016
Published online: 20 Apr 2016 *

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