Understanding Fire and Smoke Flow Through Modeling and Visualization.
Understanding Fire and Smoke Flow Through Modeling and
Visualization.
(1667 K)
Forney, G. P.; Madrzykowski, D.; McGrattan, K. B.;
Sheppard, L.
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, Vol. 23, No.
4, 6-13, July/August 2003.
Available from:
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Website:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org
Keywords:
fire models; smoke flow; visualization; zone models;
computational fluid dynamics; simulation; case histories
Abstract:
Structural fires cost the US economy more than $100
billion annually in property damage, fire department
maintenance, and insurance premiums. A price cant be put
on the human toll: each year on average, 4,000 civilians
die and 23,000 get injured in fires. Approximately 80
percent of fire deaths occur in homes. Trying to put out
these fires costs 80 to 100 firefighters their lives and
80,000 to 90,000 more are injured every year. Smoke and
toxic gas inhalation cause the majority of fire
fatalities. Flashover, illustrated in Figure 1, occurs
when flames erupt and rapidly fill a compartment.
Despite fire codes and improved building designs,
flashover and smoke spread are still major problems and
require a more complete understanding of fire behavior.
Fortunately, we can use fire modeling and visualization
tools to overcome these problems, ultimately leading to
the prevention of smoke and fire spread.
Additional Information:
Movies related to many of the articles figures are
available at
http://www.computer.org/cga/cg2003/g4toc.htm. Fire on
the Web (http://fire.nist.gov) contains information
about fire including the Cherry Road and Iowa case
studies, fire tests and data, software models, and
publications. Each fire test Web page documents a test
fire by displaying it in several forms including still
photographs, movies, and heat-release-rate data. CD-ROM
versions of the Cherry Road and Iowa case studies
containing animations of fire simulations are available
at no cost by sending a request to
daniel.madrzykowski@nist.gov. The Cherry Road report,
NISTIR 6510, is available at http://fire.nist.gov/6510/
and the Iowa report, NISTIR 6854 is available at
http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/duplex/. In addition to
the reports, these CDs contain animations illustrating
the flow dynamics for some of the fire scenarios. FDS
and Smokeview software (including source for FDS) and
documentation is available at http://fire.nist.gov/fds.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899