DHS Scholars Internship Fire Research Division

Tony Le, Drexel University

Advisor: Dr. Glenn Forney, NIST

August 13th, 2007

Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS)

Command line based computational fluid dynamics model of fire-driven fluid flowBased on Navier-Stokes equations for low-

speed, thermally-driven flow Emphasis on smoke and heat transport from

fires First created in February 2000

Computational Fluid Dynamics

Hot Upper Zone

Cool Lower Zone

Zone Fire Model

- Divide into two zones

- Ordinary differential equation

Field Model

- Divide into small volumes

-Partial differential equations

Simulation Clip

Features of FDS

Hydrodynamic Model - Navier-StokesTurbulence treated by Smagorinsky form of

Large Eddy Simulation (LES) Combustion Model – single step chemical

reaction tracked via a two-parameter mixture fraction model

Radiation Transport – finite volume methods for convective transport

Features of FDS (cont.)

Geometry – approximated governing equations of a rectilinear mesh

Multiple Meshes – numerous rectangular meshes used for calculations

Parallel Processing – numerous computers using Message Passing Interface (MPI)

Boundary Conditions – solid surfaces are assigned thermal boundary conditions

Linux Fire Cluster

Current System PERL Script Current Load Temperature Usage

User Cumulative

System Status

Nagios – Network Monitoring

New System Notifications

E-mail SMS (Text Msgs)

Temperature System Status Interactive

Plug-ins Web-Based Services

FDS Graphical User Interface (GUI)

Ruby – WxRuby

SmokeView (SMV)

Visualize numerical predictions generated by FDS

Displays time-dependent Traces particle flow Animated contour slices of

computed gas variables and surface data

Simulation Clip

SmokeView - OpenGL

Simulation Clip

3D Smoke – Animated Isosurfaces

Simulation Clip

Particle Animation

Simulation Clip

Temperature Slices

Simulation Clip

Boundary Temperature

Simulation Clip

Validation

Simulation Clip

Real World Models

NASA Vehicle Assembly Building

Kennedy Space Center

courtesy Rolf Jensen

Tank Fire Analysis

Combustion Science and Engineering

2006 Olympic Ice Hockey Stadium,

Turin, Italy, Courtesy of Arup

Parking Garage,

Courtesy of VTT, Finland

Courtesy, Schirmer Engineering

PyroSim, courtesy Thunderhead

Engineering Consultants, Manhattan, Kansas

World Trade Center InvestigationKevin McGrattan, Chuck Bouldin, Glenn Forney

Simulation Clip

College Dorm FireCollege Dorm Fire

Questions?

http://fire.nist.gov/fds/

http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~ttl28