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Fire Protection Engineering Calculators
Fire Dynamics Simulator v5 Mesh Size Calculator
Free, online tool to generate a MESH line for insertion into an FDS input file.
Fire modeling in your browser.
Hot Gas Layer Compartment Temperature Calculator
Online tool to calculate a steady-state hot gas layer temperature as a function of heat release rate (HRR) at a given time in a compartment under fire conditions based on the McCaffrey, Quintiere, Harkleroad (MQH) correlation.
Transient Steel Heating Under Fire Conditions
Online tool to calculate transient, lumped steel beam (protected and unprotected) temperatures under fire conditions using standard time-temperature curves.
Flame Height and Plume Centerline Temperature Calculator
Online tool to calculate flame height and plume centerline temperatures based on correlations by Heskestad and McCaffrey.
t-squared Fire Ramp Calculator
Online tool to calculate a t-squared (time squared) heat release rate curve, which is commonly used to estimate transient fire growth for fire protection design purposes.
Current Work
Working on my Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin in the UT Fire Research Group.
Active Projects/Courses
Spring 2012
- Courses: Human Exposure to Indoor Air Pollution; HVAC Design
- Research: Inverse Fire Modeling Problems
- Research: Probabilistic Risk Assessment Fire Modeling for Nuclear Power Plants (with SwRI)
- Working through SFPE UT to expand industry connections and research opportunities at UT Austin
Research Interests
- Fire modeling/simulation and fire dynamics
- NIST Fire Dynamics Simulator
- Computational science and the application of fire models
- Inverse fire modeling problems
- Wildland fires: experiments and modeling
Publications
Refereed Publications:
- K.J. Overholt, O.A. Ezekoye, “Characterizing heat release rates using an inverse fire modeling technique“, Fire Technology, In Press, 2012.
- K.J. Overholt, M.J. Gollner, J. Perricone, A.S. Rangwala, F.A. Williams, “Warehouse Commodity Classification from Fundamental Principles. Part II: Flame Heights and Flame Spread“, Fire Safety Journal 46 (6) (2011) 317-329. (DOI)
- M.J. Gollner, K.J. Overholt, F.A. Williams, A.S. Rangwala, J. Perricone, “Warehouse Commodity Classification from Fundamental Principles. Part I: Commodity & Burning Rates“, Fire Safety Journal 46 (6) (2011) 305-316.
Non-refereed Publications:
- K.J. Overholt, O.A. Ezekoye, “Inverse fire modeling for heat release rate characterization”, 7th U.S. National Combustion Meeting, Atlanta, GA, March 2011. (Presentation)
- K.J. Overholt, M. Gollner, A. Rangwala, “Characterizing the flammability of corrugated cardboard using a cone calorimeter”, 6th U.S. National Combustion Meeting, Ann Arbor, MI, May 2009. (Paper) (Presentation) (Poster)
Professional Societies
President, SFPE UT Student Chapter, 2010-Present
President, SFPE WPI Student Chapter, 2009
Student Member, Society of Fire Protection Engineers, 2004-Present
Student Member, International Association for Fire Safety Science, 2011-Present
Student Member, International Association of Wildland Fire, 2011-Present
Member, Central Texas Fire Investigators Association, 2011-Present
Founding President, SFPE UHD Student Chapter, 2007