Prof. Sofiane MERADJI

University of Toulon, France.

Prof. Dominique MORVAN

Aix-Marseille University (AMU), France.

Prof. Gilbert ACCARY

Lebanese University, France.

This work reports on the modeling and 3D numerical simulations of wildfire propagation. The mathematical model is based on a multiphase formulation and a homogenization approach that consists in averaging the conservation equations (mass, momentum, energy...) governing the evolution of variables representing the state of the vegetation/atmosphere system, within a control volume containing both the solid-vegetation phase and the surrounding gas phase. The relationship between the rate of spread (ROS) and the wind velocity is revisited, through the role played by the two forces governing the trajectory of the flame front and the plume, namely the ratio between the buoyancy of the plume and the inertia due to wind. The ratio between these two forces is introduced, through the Byram’s convective number. The existence of two regimes of propagation of surface fires (wind-driven fire vs plume-dominated fire) and the relative importance of the two modes of heat transfer (by convection and radiation) on the propagation of a fire front are discussed.

Prof Dominique MORVAN Searcher at CNRS from 1985 to 2000, Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Aix-Marseille University (AMU) since 2000. Scientific background: Mechanical engineering, Fluid Mechanics, Biomechanics, Heat and Mass transfer, Computational Fluid Mechanics, Turbulence, Wildfire modelling. Director of the Department of Mechanical Engineering (AMU) from 2014 to 2020, Associate editor of the International Journal of Wildland Fire.

Prof Sofiane MERADJI Holder of a PhD in Computational Fluid Mechanics, obtained at the University of Aix-Marseille II in 1999, I started my research activity around the theme of forest fires, in 2006, during the European project FIRE PARADOX. Since 2010, I am a Research Engineer in Scientific Computing at the University of Toulon, in a laboratory of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science. My research focuses on the fire physics and tools development on HPC architectures.

Prof Gilbert ACCARY Born in Lebanon in 1978, BE in Mechanical Engineering from the Lebanese University in 2001, PhD in fluid mechanics for Aix-Marseille University (France) in 2005. Full Professor at the Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering since 2014, where he teaches fluid mechanics, gas dynamics, heat transfer, and CFD. His main current research fields are the physics-based modeling of wildfire spread and the water desalination processes.