Patent ID: 7690837

Claim:
A method comprising: developing a thermal profile of a suppressed fire in a physical model of a cargo compartment of an aircraft, wherein the physical model is built to enable the measurement of temperatures generated during ignition and suppression of a controlled cargo fire, wherein the thermal profile of the suppressed fire includes one or more profiles of temperature versus time for a plurality of locations in the physical model of the cargo compartment; analyzing heat transfer resulting from applying the thermal profile of the suppressed fire to a structure of the aircraft surrounding the cargo compartment to determine a predicted temperature reached by one or more parts of the structure surrounding the cargo compartment as a result of the suppressed fire; and generating an output at a display or other output device of a computer system, the output including the predicted temperature reached by the one or more parts of the structure surrounding the cargo compartment to facilitate analyzing whether the one or more parts of the structure surrounding the cargo compartment have sufficient strength after reaching the predicted temperature to safely land the aircraft.