Simulation tool for environment friendly aircraft cargo fire protection system evaluation

Conventionally Halon fire suppression system has been used in the civil transport aircraft. Halon is very effective fire extinguishing agent on a per unit weight basis over a wide range of aircraft environmental conditions. Halon is electrically non-conducting and has relatively low toxicity. However, Halon is an ozone depleting and global warming agent and its production has been banned by international agreement. One of the objectives of CleanSky-2 project is to develop an Environment Friendly Fire Protection (EFFP) system (halon free fire suppression system) for the aircraft cargo hold. In the design phase of the EFFP system, validated simulation models shall help to simulate several different architectures, extinguishing agents and different fire suppressant systems itself. This paper presents the Indoor Environment Simulation Suite (IESS) to perform simulation based EFFP system design. IESS uses a hybrid simulation approach i.e. coupling of high resolution CFD simulation with relatively low resolution zonal model simulation.