A case study of two computer methods used to simulate fires in industrial facilities
Contributors: Texas A&M University
Publisher: Texas A&M University; Available from National Technical Information Service
Published: 1997
Place of publication: College Station, Texas; Springfield, Va
Language: eng
Subjects: FIRES; CASE STUDIES; INDUSTRIAL PLANTS; COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
Description: Fire when uncontrolled can create mass destruction. In the movie Backdraft, Robert De Niro plays a senior fire      investigator who claims to his young eager apprentice that "Fire is a living, breathing, thing that must be treated      with respect to understand." Some anthropologists suggest that early humans discovered fire through      spontaneous combustion. The arrangement of decaying organic matter may have been enough to generate a      small fire. Conventional anthropologists argue that fire may have been first discovered in forest fires started by      lightning, lava flows or other natural causes. Fire is real and must be controlled. An area to best control and      minimize its destructive effects is during the design process. The design concerns for fire include: Control of      ignition Control means of escape; Detection Control Spread of fire; Prevention of structure collapse. Prior to      controlling the spread of fire one must be able to predict its behavior. One promising method for doing this is      with computer modeling. This technology was used by the US Navy in a unique government/industry partnership      in analyzing fire in aircraft hangars. With the high cost of modern aircraft, detector and sprinkler activation      methods were evaluated to determine a quicker response to small fires with the benefit of reducing damage to      aircraft adjacent to the fire source. Along with full scale experiments - computer modeling played a role in      formulating new approaches. The computer model should simulate the response of the facility fire control system      for the fire. The simulation can be used to evaluate weaknesses in the fire control system. In the long term to      make this simulation capability accessible to the architect or engineer from the desk top. Consequently, the user      would choose components for parameters to run a fire hazard scenario and see its predicte.
Notes: Thesis (M.S. in Engineering) Texas A&M University, Oct. 1997.

Includes bibliographical references (leaf 66)

dk/dk cc:9116 02/04/98.