AIRCRAFTFIRE - Fire risks assessment and increase of passenger survivability
Overview
Background & policy context:
Composite materials and other combustible materials have increasingly been used in order to reduce the weight of the aircraft or to improve the passenger comfort. However, these materials raised the fire load significantly. Although these materials have passed the certification tests, it has been necessary to study and assess fire risks for relevant areas, specific zones of the aircraft and the entire aircraft.
Objectives:
The AIRCRAFTFIRE project aimed at an increase of passenger survivability during major fire scenarios such as in-flight fires and post-crash fires. The focus was on the next generation of aircrafts.
Existing and validated simulation tools were adapted to the project. At the start of this project, the simulation of fire propagation and evacuation in aeronautics suffered from a lack of data on material properties and fire behaviour. Relevant data necessary for the proposed advanced simulation which was not available was be gained by experiments. Beside the provision of physical and chemical data a sound analysis of existing data bases maintained by aviation authority, airline and aircraft manufacturer in order to identify and classify the relevant fire related scenarios for in-flight and post-crash fires was to provide the second basis for the improved simulation.
Methodology:
The project analysed the sensing capacities and deployment of the relevant sensors aboard aircraft and made use of advanced sensor data fusion to increase the overall performances. Combined with the results of the simulation of fire propagation, it allowed for the recommendation of improvements for the aircraft operation in case of fire related incidents. Together with the results of the advanced evacuation simulation, the results of the project directly influenced the design of the next generation of aircraft with respect to fire prevention and fire management.
The consortium (composed of aircraft manufacturer, aviation authority, research establishments and universities) undertook the necessary efforts to make the knowledge gained available to all relevant parties to achieve the project objectives.
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