Simulation Environment for Onboard Fire and Smoke Propagation Model

Haupt, T., Henley, G., & Parihar, B. (2008). Simulation Environment for Onboard Fire and Smoke Propagation Model. Austin, TX: Electric Ship Research and Development Consortium.

The ability to quickly and accurately predict fire and smoke (or other airborne particles) spread in a vessel can be critical to enable the vessel to continue its mission. A fire, whether initiated by enemy, terrorist, or other accidental cause, may hinder or totally disable the vessel if not contained quickly and efficiently. As a tactical tool onboard ships, this work focuses on predicting and visualizing fire spread faster than real-time to assist fire control personnel in firefighting efforts. As a training tool this work allows firefighters to study "what if" scenarios, or as a design tool it provides ship designers the capability to study design alternatives. The complete simulation system resulted from collaborative work by Mississippi State University (MSU), the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and Hughes Associates, Inc. (HAI). The MSU-developed GUI (Graphical User Interface) provides a runtime environment for setting up simulations, running the Fire and Smoke SIMulator (FSSIM) from HAI, visualizing the results, extracting data for plotting or other analysis, and replaying or comparing simulation results.