(3) fire research applications in the built and natural environments. To develop and maintain robust, validated fire models-and the associated visualization and analysis tools-for

Our research includes work on modeling outdoor flows at the community scale applications include the following: natural gas leak dispersion and inverse modeling, clean-up of marine oil spills, and flame spread at the wildland-urban interface (WUI). The ability to model complex geometry will also facilitate more accurate two-way coupling between FDS and finite-element models used for analysis of steel-constructed buildings. This will improve our ability to model flame spread and wind fields over complex surfaces (including wildland terrain and urban canopies). We will also develop the capability within FDS to handle curvilinear flow obstructions. We will improve the prediction of toxic emissions (like carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, and soot) and flame suppression in under-ventilated fires where toxic emissions are prevalent. More specifically, we will improve the prediction of burning rates for liquids and solid fuels in FDS. This research will extend the capabilities of these models, as well as improve their accuracy and reliability. These tools include the Consolidated Fire and Smoke Transport (CFAST) zone model, the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) computational fluid dynamics model, and Smokeview, which visualizes output from both CFAST and FDS. The Fire Research Division develops and maintains a set of computational tools to analyze fire behavior.

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