Future of Fire Simulation

Published

December 1, 2002

Author(s)

Kevin B. McGrattan, Howard R. Baum, Ronald G. Rehm, Glenn P. Forney, Kuldeep R. Prasad

Abstract

Scientists and engineers are often asked to make predictions of the state of technology in the future and are usually laughably wrong. The best prognosticators get the trends right, but cannot possibly fill in the details. Think of Jules Verne predicting a trip to the moon, albeit in a projectile decked out in lavish red velvet, manned by champagne-sipping adventurers, and shot out of a giant cannon. Unlike Jules Verne, we dare only look 10 years into the future, rather than 100. Also, we focus on the work going on in the Building and Fire Research Lab at NIST because, even though most agree that modeling will play an increasing role in fire research, the nature of the models is a subject of intense debate. We do not presume to speak for the entire community, and we welcome the opinions of other researchers as to the direction of modeling in the future.

Citation

Fire Protection Engineering Journal

Volume

13

Issue

No. 13

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

Local Download

Keywords

fire simulation, smoke, fire models, pallet storage, brush fires, computational fluid dynamics, fire spread

Citation

McGrattan, K. , Baum, H. , Rehm, R. , Forney, G. and Prasad, K. (2002), Future of Fire Simulation, Fire Protection Engineering Journal, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=912703 (Accessed October 30, 2025)