Attached are my PDF slides on the topic of “Inverse fire modeling for heat release rate characterization“, which was presented at the 7th US National Combustion Meeting in Atlanta, GA on March 21, 2011.

The abstract is as follows:

A ubiquitous source of uncertainty in fire modeling is the proper heat release rate for the fuel packages of interest. An inverse heat release rate (HRR) calculation method is presented to determine a HRR that satisfies measured temperature data. The methodology is developed by using synthetic temperature data using the Consolidated Model of Fire and Smoke Transport (CFAST) zone model to produce hot gas layer temperatures in a single compartment. The inverse HRR method runs at super-real-time speeds while calculating an inverse HRR solution that can reasonably well match the original HRR curve. Examples of the inverse HRR method are demonstrated by using a multiple step HRR case, experimental data with a constant HRR, and complex HRR curves. In principle, the methodology can be applied using any reasonably accurate fire model to invert for the HRR.

The slides can be downloaded here: Overholt_Combustion_2011

I’ve posted a new web calculator tool to calculate flame heights and plume centerline temperatures (above the flame height). The calculator is based on the correlations by Heskestad and McCaffrey, and is available here:

http://www.koverholt.com/flame-height-and-plume-centerline-temperature-calculator/

Please let me know if you find any bugs, would like to give feedback on this tool, or have a request for another web calculator!

I’ve posted a new web calculator tool related to structural fire safety to calculate the lumped temperature of steel under fire conditions. The tool has the ability to input parameters for steel, select a standard fire time-temperature curve (ISO or ASTM), and choose unprotected or protected steel. The tool is based on the equations from the textbook by A. Buchanan, Structural Design For Fire Safety, and is available here:

http://www.koverholt.com/transient-steel-heating-under-fire-conditions/

I hope you find the calculator useful, and I will continue to add web tools for fire protection engineering calculations. I will be adding a more detailed explanation and equations to the steel heating calculator page in the near future as well as releasing the source code.

Please let me know if you find any bugs, would like to give feedback on this tool, or have a request for another web calculator! The next web tool will be a calculator to give results from the Heskestad flame height and centerline temperatures.