Quantifying radiative heat flux and firebrand attack from wildfires at the Wildland-Urban Interface using physics-based models

The wildland–urban interface (WUI) refers to the area where human development and wildland or vegetative fuels intermix or overlap. The general trends in WUI dynamics indicate that the expansion of human settlements into previously uninhabited or sparsely populated areas will continue. This trend is primarily driven by population growth and urban sprawl, land use changes through the conversion of agricultural and/or forest areas into urban ones, economic and infrastructure developments in rural areas, and climate change. Performance-based design approach empowers engineers to use extensively science-based knowledge to assess and quantify the thermal attack of wildfires on the built-environment at the WUI. The use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)(using Fire Dynamics Simulator-FDS) tools is crucial to modelling and understanding fire spread and the impact of wildfires in the built environment assessing in detail heat transfer mechanisms and ignition potential of structures using full physics models. Specific focus will be devoted to the study of firebrands, targeting their generation, transport, accumulation and how they may cause new ignitions in the built environment, and to the study of the radiative heat flux. Complex numerical models will be developed to reproduce the experimental behaviour observed in real fire field tests, enabling extensive parametric studies to investigate critical and realistic scenarios that allow the development and implementation of tailored preventive measures to enhance the resilience and safety of the built environment. Coupling CFD with the finite element method will be conducted to assess the behaviour of materials with increasing temperature. The obtained results will be disseminated through journal and conference papers and in webinars continuing the work that is being conducted in the scope of the ongoing research project INTERFACESEGURA (PCIF/AGT/0062/2018). A PhD candidate funded by FCT is working on this specific topic.