Large scale fire experiments in the HDR on oil and cable fire loads - code development

Since 1984, different series of large scale fire experiments and related numerical and theoretical investigations have been performed in the containment of the HDR. The last test series include oil pool fires and cable fires. This results of which can directly be applied to predict the impact of real fires at different locations in a containment on mechanical or structural components as well as on plant personnel. But the main advantage of the measurements and observations was to serve as a basis for fire code development and validation. Different types of fire codes have been used to predict in advance or evaluate afterwards the test results: - Zone models for single room and multiple room configurations, - field models for complex room configurations. Finally, there exist codes of varying degree of specialization which have proven their power and sufficient exactness to predict fire effects as a basis for optimum fire protection design. (orig./HP)