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Author(s):
Marcos Vanella, Kevin B. McGrattan, Randall McDermott, Glenn P. Forney, William E. Mell, Emanuele Gissi, Paolo Fiorucci
Year Published:

Cataloging Information

Topic(s):
Fire Behavior
Simulation Modeling

NRFSN number: 22775
FRAMES RCS number: 62814
Record updated:

A method for the large-eddy simulation (LES) of wildfire spread over complex terrain is presented. In this scheme, a cut-cell immersed boundary method (CC-IBM) is used to render the complex terrain, defined by a tessellation, on a rectilinear Cartesian grid. Discretization of scalar transport equations for chemical species is done via a finite volume scheme on cut-cells defined by the intersection of the terrain geometry and the Cartesian cells. Momentum transport and heat transfer close to the immersed terrain are handled using dynamic wall models and a direct forcing immersed boundary method. A new 'open' convective inflow/outflow method for specifying atmospheric wind boundary conditions is presented. Additionally, three basic approaches have been explored to model fire spread: (1) Representing the vegetation as a collection of Lagrangian particles, (2) representing the vegetation as a semi-porous boundary, and (3) representing the fire spread using a level set method, in which the fire spreads as a function of terrain slope, vegetation type, and wind speed. Several test and validation cases are reported to demonstrate the capabilities of this novel wildfire simulation methodology.

Citation

Vanella, Marcos; McGrattan, Kevin B.; McDermott, Randall; Forney, Glenn P.; Mell, William E.; Gissi, Emanuele; Fiorucci, Paolo. 2021. A multi-fidelity framework for wildland fire behavior simulations over complex terrain. Atmosphere 12(2):273. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12020273

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