Modelling turbulence effects in wildland fire propagation by the randomized level-set method
Technical Report , CRS4 - july 2012
Download the publication :
Turbulence is of paramount importance in wildland fire propagation since it randomly transports the
hot air mass that can pre-heat and then ignite the area ahead the fire. This contributes to give a random
character to the firefront position together with other phenomena as for example fire spotting, vegetation
distribution (patchiness), gaseous combustion fluctuation, small-scale terrain elevation changes. Here only
turbulence is considered. The level-set method is used to numerically describe the evolution of the fireline
contour that is assumed to have a random motion because of turbulence. The progression of the combustion
process is then described by a level-set contour distributed according to a weight function given by the
probability density function of the air particles in turbulent motion. From the comparison between the
ordinary and the randomized level-set methods, it emerges that the proposed modelling approach turns out
to be suitable to simulate a moving firefront fed by the ground fuel and driven, beside the meteorological
and orographical factors, also by the turbulent diffusion of the hot air. This approach allows the simulation
of the fire overcoming of a firebreak zone. The discussed results are explorative and need to be subjected to
a future validation.
BibTex references
@TechReport{PM12a,
author = {Pagnini, G. and Massidda, L.},
title = {Modelling turbulence effects in wildland fire propagation by the randomized level-set method},
institution = {CRS4},
month = {july},
year = {2012},
keywords = {wildland fire,level-set method},
url = {https://publications.crs4.it/pubdocs/2012/PM12a},
}
Other publications in the database