FireDOC Search

Author
McGrattan, K. B.
Title
Modeling Fire Growth and Spread in Houses. (Abstract/Presentation/Visuals)
Coporate
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
Report
NIST SP 998
May 2003
Book or Conf
Extended Abstracts and Presentations from the Workshop on Fire Growth and Spread on Objects, March 4-6, 2002, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Peacock, R. D.; Pitts, W. M., Editors, 2003
Keywords
fire growth | fire spread | home fires
Abstract
In cooperation with the fire protection engineering community, a numerical fire model, Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), is being developed at NIST to study fire behavior and to evaluate the performance of fire protection systems in buildings. Version 1 of FDS was publicly released in February 2000, and Version 2 in December 2001. To date, about half of the applications of the model have been for design of smoke handling systems and sprinkler/detector activation studies. The other half consist of residential and industrial fire reconstructions. Throughout its early development, FDS had been aimed primarily at the first set of applications, but following the initial release it became clear that some improvements to the fundamental algorithms were needed to address the second set of applications. The two most obvious needs were for better combustion and radiation models to handle large, spreading fires in relatively small spaces like residences as opposed to industrial settings.