An open-source software framework for the integrated simulation of structures in fire

Aatif Ali Khan, Mustesin Ali Khan, Katherine A. Cashell, Asif Usmani

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The traditional methods to understand the development of elevated temperature in a structure, and also the associated structural response, are not representative of realistic fire scenarios. To provide a more accurate and realistic reflection of the fire development, the current paper develops a generic middleware which interfaces between the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) and the finite element (FE) analysis software OpenSees. This framework enables a fully integrated simulation of a realistic fire scenario including the heat transfer through the structure and the resulting thermo-mechanical response. The proposed framework is open-source and freely available and therefore can be used and further developed by researchers and practicing engineers and customised to their requirements. This paper shows validation against two sets of experimental results and one real fire incident. A number of different types of thermal boundary conditions such as gas temperatures and heat fluxes, are obtained from the CFD analysis and are then used in the subsequent heat transfer and thermo-mechanical analysis. The primary advantage of this computational tool is that it provides consultants and designers with the means to undertake large-scale projects requiring performance-based fire engineering solutions.

Original languageEnglish
Article number103896
JournalFire Safety Journal
Volume140
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2023

Keywords

  • CFD
  • Coupling
  • FEM
  • Open-source
  • Structure fire

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Chemistry
  • General Materials Science
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
  • General Physics and Astronomy

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