Evaluation on fire incident of electric vehicle spaces onboard ferries with using fire dynamics simulations

Year 2025, Volume: 11 Issue: 2, 434 - 447, 24.03.2025

Tolga Ayci , Baris Barlas , Aykut I. Olcer

Abstract

This study brings a unique perspective of electric vehicles (EVs) transportation via maritime with using performance-based design of fire safety management. In the recent years, due to the increase of production and transportation of EVs, this study is highlighted the fire safety management. The integration of electric vehicles (EVs) into maritime transport, particularly via ships and ferries, brings about unique challenges, notably concerning fire safety management. Given the increasing prevalence of EVs and their potential fire hazards, it’s crucial to address these risks comprehensively. The fire safety management of electric vehicles in ferry transport is dealt with, as this form of maritime transport is becoming increasingly important due to the increased production of this type of vehicle, which develops a complex chemical reaction mechanism and dangerous properties such as initial exothermal temperature, self-heating speed, pressure increase speed, etc. Therefore, relevant rules and regulations should be considered to ensure a safe journey. This study brings novelty to the fire safety analysis of EVs transportation onboard ships with using performance-based design and fire dynamics simulation tools to predict temperature level of the case incident. The Fire Dynamic Simulator was used for the simulations for the prediction of temperature distributions during an electric vehicle fire inside a ferry. The presented case study demonstrates how fire simulations could predict conditions for performance-based design of ferries that transport electric vehicles. Depending on simulations, temperature at initial times approximately 40s of fire incidents caused by EVs is around 1200°C and this cause severe results in terms of life and asset safety. In conclusion, this paper presents a brief insight to find an effective method for simulating and mitigating EV fires on ships to ensure crew safety and minimize fire damage.

Keywords

Electric Vehicles, Fire Dynamics Simulation, Fire Onboard Ferry, Fire Safety

References

• [1] Barlas B, Ozsoysal R, Bayraktarkatal E, Ozsoysal OA. A study on the identification of fire hazards on board: a case study. Brodogradnja 2017;68:71–87. [CrossRef]
• [2] GISIS. Maritime Casualty and Incidents, Global Integrated Shipping Information System. Available at: http://gisis.imo.org. Accessed Jan 01, 2023.
• [3] IEA. Electric car sales, 2016-2023, IEA, Paris. Available at: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/electric-car-sales-2016-2023. Accessed Mar 06, 2025.
• [4] Statista Research Department. Annual car sales worldwide 2010-2023, with a forecast for 2024, https://www.statista.com/statistics/200002/international-car-sales-since-1990/. Accessed Mar 06, 2025.
• [5] Zhang DL, Xiao LY, Wang Y, Huang GZ. 2019. Study on vehicle fire safety: statistic, investigation methods and experimental analysis. Safety Sci 2019;117:194–204. [CrossRef]
• [6] BBC news. Ameland rescue: Crew jump off ship ablaze with cargo of 3,000 cars. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66310280. Accessed Mar 06, 2025.
• [7] SOLAS. The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), International Maritime Organization (IMO) Chapter II-2.
• [8] Cowley J. Fire Safety at Sea. Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology; 2002.
• [9] UK Government, Maritime & Coastguard Agency. Electric Vehicles Onboard Passenger Ro-Ro Ferries. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mgn-653-m-amendment-1-electric-vehicles-onboard-passenger-roll-onroll-off-ro-ro-ferries. Accessed Mar 06, 2025.
• [10] Nippon Kaiji Kyokai. Guidelines for the Safe Transportation of Electric Vehicles. Available at: https://www.classnk.or.jp/hp/pdf/activities/statutory/ev_carriage_safety/gl_ev_carriage_safety_e202308.pdf. Accessed Mar 06, 2025.
• [11] Salem A. Fire engineering tools used in consequence analysis. Ship Offshore Struct 2010;5:155–187. [CrossRef]
• [12] Drysdale D. An Introduction to Fire Dynamics. 2nd ed. Hoboken: Wiley; 1999.
• [13] Wang L, Su S. Simulation of smoke motion in fire of the ship engine room with multilayer structure. Brodogradnja 2011;62:366–372.
• [14] Autian J. Toxicologic aspects of flammability and combustion of polymeric materials. J Fire Flamm 1970;1.
• [15] Rasbash DJ, Ramachandran G, Kandola B, Watts JM, Law M. Evaluation of Fire. England: John Wiley & Sons; 2004. [CrossRef]
• [16] Novozhilov V. Computational fluid dynamics modelling of compartment fires. Prog Energy Combust Sci 2001;27:611–666. [CrossRef]
• [17] Hurley MJ. SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering. 5th ed. New York: Springer; 2016.
• [18] Thomas PH. Design guide: Structure fire safety cib w14 workshop report. Fire Safety J 1986;10:77–137. [CrossRef]
• [19] Jiao Y, Wang JH, Xiao MJ, Xu T, Chen WJ. Development of field-zone-net model for fire smoke propagation simulation in ships. Proceedings - 7th International Conference on Intelligent Computation Technology and Automation, Changsha, China, 25-26 October 2014. pp. 190–193. [CrossRef]
• [20] Li J, Pu J, Ren K, Zhang K, Ding L. Fire smoke characteristics in closed ship cabin: A fire model study. Int J Syst Assur Eng Manage 2016;7:257–261. [CrossRef]
• [21] Zhu X, Chenhua Z, Zhiqing Y. Research of temperature prediction in steel cabin fire with large eddy simulation and experiment. Proceedings - 2011 International Conference on Computational and Information Sciences, Sichuan Chengdu, 21-23 Oct 2011. pp. 889–892. [CrossRef]
• [22] Kang HJ, Jin C, Dongkon L, Beom JP. A framework for using computational fire simulations in the early phases of ship design. Ocean Eng 2017;129:335–342. [CrossRef]
• [23] Lee EJ, Ruy WS, Seo J. Application of reinforcement learning to fire suppression system of an autonomous ship in irregular waves. Int J Naval Arch Ocean Eng 2020;12:910–917. [CrossRef]
• [24] Omidvar A, Mahdavi A, Mehryar R. A simulated study on the effect of water temperature on cooling efficiency of water mist fire extinguishers. J Therm Eng 2020;6:460–473. [CrossRef]
• [25] Koromila IA, Spyrou KJ. Design fire methodology for vehicle spaces onboard ships. Fire Technol 2023;59:1725–1759. [CrossRef]
• [26] Sun P, Bisschop R, Niu H. Huang X. A review of battery fires in electric vehicles. Fire Technol 2020;56:1361–1410. [CrossRef]
• [27] Labois M, Djamel L. Very-large eddy simulation (V-LES) of the flow across a tube bundle. Nuc Eng Des 2011;241:2075–2085. [CrossRef]
• [28] Tiwari P, Xia Z, Han X. Comparison of VLES and LES turbulence modeling for swirling turbulent flow. J Appl Fluid Mech 2020;13:1107–1116. [CrossRef]
• [29] Brzezinska D, Bryant P. Performance-based analysis in evaluation of safety in car parks under electric vehicle fire conditions. Energies 2022;15:649. [CrossRef]
• [30] McGrattan K, Hostikka S, McDermott R, Floyd J, Weinschenk C, Overholt K. Fire Dynamics Simulator, User’s Guide. 6th ed. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA, and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo, Finland; 2013.