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Author
Jones, W. W. | Forney, G. P. | Peacock, R. D. | Reneke, P. A.
Title
Technical Reference for CFAST: An Engineering Tool for Estimating Fire and Smoke Transport.
Coporate
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
Report
NIST TN 1431, March 2000, 190 p.
Distribution
AVAILABLE FROM Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20401-0003. Telephone: 202-512-1800. Website: http://www.gpo.gov
Keywords
computer models | predictive models | computer programs | evacuation | fire models | fire research | hazard assessment | toxicity | CFAST
Identifiers
CFAST (Consolidated Fire growth And Smoke Transport)
Abstract
CFAST is a zone model capable of predicting the environment in a multi-compartment structure subjected to a fire. It calculates the time evolving distribution of smoke and fire gases and the temperature throughout a building during a user-specified fire. This report describes the equations which constitute the model, the physical basis for these equations, data which are used by the model, and details of the operation of the computer program implementing the model. The means by which one can add new phenomena are detailed, as are the variables and structure of the model. A set of comparisons between the model and a range of real-scale fire experiments is presented. In general, the CFAST model compares favorably with the experiments examined in this report. Although differences between the model and the experiments were clear, they can be explained by limitations of the model and of the experiments.