Fire and Evacuation Modeling - A Discussion of the State of the Art

When
October 08, 2015
11:45 AM - 2:00 PM
Location
Merrick HQ - Greenwood Village, CO

Registration

Chapter Members Registration Rate – $25.00
This is the rate for SFPE-RMC "Members" and "Chapter Friend Members" to attend this meeting.
Non-Chapter Member Registration Rate – $30.00
This is the rate for attendees who are not members of SFPE-RMC. [Note that membership in the Chapter is only $25 for the year ($15 for SFPE organization members). If you plan to attend more than one Chapter meeting, Chapter Membership pays for itself quickly!]
Pre-Paid Members (for RSVP count)
This registration type is for pre-paid "Chapter Friends" or "Chapter Members" who prepaid for all meetings with their membership payment for the year.
Student
College-aged students who are currently enrolled in a Bachelors or Masters degree program, who are interested in the profession of Fire Protection Engineering.

Registration is closed

When using the performance based design approach, Fire Protection Engineers have an array of tools available for calculating the Available Safe Egress Time (ASET) and the Required Safe Egress Time (RSET). The most detailed approach to calculating ASET is to use a fire simulator, such as the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) developed by NIST. This program is a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model that can use millions of cells to model pyrolysis and combustion, with the capability to use sensors to activate/deactivate fans or curtains. Evacuation software can be used to calculate RSET. Again, the most detailed approach uses software that subdivides the geometry and then simulates occupants moving to the exits.

This talk will focus on the concepts used to simulate fire and evacuation. In addition, Thunderhead Engineering is the developer of PyroSim, which is for running FDS and Pathfinder for evacuation. These tools will be used to demonstrate applications focusing on fundamental concepts.

PRESENTER
Daniel Swenson @ Thunderhead Engineering Daniel Swenson is Mechanical Engineer by training, having first-hand experience with some common misconceptions of those new to fire and evacuation modeling. He is co-founder of Thunderhead Engineering, and is a retired Mechanical Engineering professor from Kansas State University.