A MATHEMATICAL APPROACH TO ESTIMATE THE ERROR

Abstract

Engineering based calculation procedures in fire safety science often consist of unknown or uncertain input data which are to be estimated by the engineer using appropriate and plausible assumptions. Thereby, errors in this data are induced in the calculation and thus, impact the number as well as the reliability of the results. In this paper a procedure is presented to directly quantify and consider unknown input properties in the process of calculation using distribution functions and Monte-Carlo Simulations. A sensitivity analysis reveals the properties which have a major impact on the calculation reliability. Furthermore, the results are compared to the numerical models of CFAST and FDS.

Keywords

• Error propagation
• Monte-Carlo Simulation
• smoke layer height
• CFAST
• FDS