2014/08/26 by Gianni Pagnini, Pagnini, Gianni, Massidda, Luca +1
Engineering · Environmental Science · #35K08 #60J60 #97M10 #Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics (physics.ao-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Fire dynamics and safety research #Fire effects on ecosystems #Landslides and related hazards
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1408.6129
openalex publication_date 2014/08/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Turbulence is of paramount importance in wildland fire propagation since it\nrandomly transports the hot air mass that can pre-heat and then ignite the area\nahead the fire. This contributes to give a random character to the firefront\nposition together with other phenomena as for example fire spotting, vegetation\ndistribution (patchiness), gaseous combustion fluctuation, small-scale terrain\nelevation changes. Here only turbulence is considered. The level-set method is\nused to numerically describe the evolution of the fireline contour that is\nassumed to have a random motion because of turbulence. The progression of the\ncombustion process is then described by a level-set contour distributed\naccording to a weight function given by the probability density function of the\nair particles in turbulent motion. From the comparison between the ordinary and\nthe randomized level-set methods, it emerges that the proposed modelling\napproach turns out to be suitable to simulate a moving firefront fed by the\nground fuel and driven, beside the meteorological and orographical factors,\nalso by the turbulent diffusion of the hot air. This approach allows the\nsimulation of the fire overcoming of a firebreak zone. The discussed results\nare explorative and need to be subjected to a future validation.\n