OECD/NEA PRISME Project

The PRISME project will consist of a series of fire and smoke propagation tests in a dedicated facility at the French Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire (IRSN) centre at Cadarache. The facility will be used to investigate room-to-room heat and smoke propagation, the effect of network ventilation and the resulting thermal stresses to sensitive safety equipment of such room configurations. It is also planned to use data from the project to study multi-room fires and for validating fire computer codes.

Several propagation modes will be studied: through a door; along a ventilation duct that crosses the room containing the fire and that ventilates an adjacent room; along a ventilation duct when flow is reversed within; and through leakages between several rooms.

The project aims to provide such critical information as the time that elapses before target equipment malfunctions and to qualify computer codes modelling heat and smoke propagation phenomena. The objective is to answer questions concerning smoke and heat propagation inside an installation, by means of experiments tailored for code validation purposes. In particular, the project aims to provide answers to the following questions:

• What is, for a given fire scenario, the failure time for equipment situated in the nearby rooms that communicate with the fire room by the ventilation network and/or by a door (which is open before the fire or opens during the fire)?
• Is it valid to assume that no propagation occurs beyond the second room from the fire room when the rooms communicate through doors, and beyond the first room when rooms communicate only by the ventilation network?
• What are the safety consequences of the damper or door failing to close, or of an intervention delay which is too long?
• What is the best way to operate the ventilation network in order to limit pressure-driven phenomena and releases to nearby rooms?
• Is it the admission damper closing following fire detection? Is it the extraction damper closing when the temperature threshold of filters has been reached or when the filters are plugged?

The results obtained will be used as a basis for qualifying fire codes (either simplified zone model codes or computerised fluid dynamics codes used in the fire safety analysis of nuclear installations and plants). After qualification, these codes could be applied for simulating other fire propagation scenarios in various room configurations with a good degree of confidence. The information will be useful for designers in order to select the best fire protection strategy. For the operators, this data could be useful for establishing the suitable operation of the plant, such as the operation of the ventilation network (e.g. closing dampers to reduce the ventilation flow rate or to stop the ventilation) in case of a fire.

The first tests were carried out and reported on in the course of 2006. At the same time the conditions for the entire test series were discussed, including how to support the experimental projects with analyses and code assessments. Further tests were carried out and reported upon as scheduled in 2007. Two meetings of the project steering bodies were held in April and October 2007. The conditions for the entire test series were addressed in the meetings, including ways to support the experimental projects with analyses and code assessments. As requested by the project members, the French IRSN also prepared and submitted the plans and conditions for the four tests to be carried out in 2008, which were circulated among participants and subsequently revised according according to the input received. These tests will also involve facility modifications to meet specific members' requirements.

The acronym PRISME comes from the French phrase Propagation d’un incendie pour des scénarios multi-locaux élémentaires, which in English can be translated as "Fire propagation in elementary multi-room scenarios".

Project participants

• Belgium
• Canada
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Japan
• Netherlands
• Republic of Korea
• Spain
• Sweden.

Budget

€7 million.

Project period

January 2006-December 2010

Related links:

• Second Specialist Meeting on Operator Aids for Severe Accident Management: Summary and Conclusions NEA/CSNI/R(99)27 (1999)
• NEA Nuclear Safety Programme
• Overview of Joint Projects
• NEA contacts:

  Carlo Vitanza (carlo.vitanza@oecd.org)

Last updated: 25 June 2008