Design Fire Development for Automotive Vehicle Applications: An Overview

Design fire scenarios for automotive vehicles are of interest to fire protection engineering applications such as tunnels and parking structures. Automotive vehicle fires can result from post-collision events as well as accidental and intentional means. A literature review has been conducted to identify data sources that are available for use in quantifying automotive design fire scenarios. The burning behavior of automotive vehicles from fire tests designed to simulate both accidental and post-collision scenarios have been reviewed and analyzed using an existing reference heat release curve as well as the time-squared fire growth model typically used in fire protection engineering analyses.