From: Toni Emerson Subject: APPS: Virtual Fire Date: September 15, 1997 [Below is an abridged copy of the NIST UPDATE, Sept. 15, 1997. It is a an article on Virtual Fire research that I thought would be of interest to our newsgroup. -T.E.] FILE: NIST UPDATE DATE: Sept. 15, 1997 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is the e-mail edition of NIST UPDATE. NIST UPDATE is a biweekly synopsis for journalists of current activities, research results, and program announcements from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. If you would like to subscribe to NIST Update go to the World Wide Web site at: http://www.nist.gov, click on "News" and "Subscription for NIST Update." Complete the form, being sure to check off "NIST Update" and your preferred form of delivery. Send reports of problems to cwines@nist.gov. NIST UPDATE also may be found on the NIST WWW site: http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/news.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------------- <...deletion...> FIRE RESEARCH 'Virtual' Fires Could Save Real Buildings, People Virtual reality technology soon could enable fire safety engineers and architects to evaluate building designs and fire codes from the perspective of people in a burning building--without leaving their computer screen. This advance is the goal of NIST-sponsored work that integrates NIST's Consolidated Model of Fire and Smoke Transport software program (known as CFAST) with the University of California, Berkeley's Architectural Walkthrough Program (known as Walkthru). CFAST provides accurate simulation of the impact of fire and its byproducts on a building environment. Walkthru, using AutoCAD floor plans, provides interactive, three-dimensional, simulated (10 frames per second) movement through buildings. Together, they provide real-time scientific visualization of building conditions in a fire hazard situation. Users can observe the room-to-room spread of flame and smoke from a fire. Visualization techniques depict concentrations of toxic compounds or the temperatures of the atmosphere, walls and floor. Simulating fires in virtual building environments could enable users to preview architectural designs, evaluate their performance with various real-world circumstances and experiment with hypothetical situations cheaply and with no risk to life or property. BFRL fire safety scientists and engineers are looking for industrial partners to help develop a personal computer version of the software that can be adapted readily to multiple building plans. For more information, contact Walter Jones, A249 Polymer Bldg., NIST, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-0001, (301) 975-6887, The NIST paper is not an exhaustive review but highlights the approaches most commonly used for the refrigerants. It also points to sources for high-accuracy formulations used to define properties of pure refrigerants and provides a summary of the data available for some alternative refrigerant mixtures of current interest (such as those containing R32, R125, R143a and R152a). For a copy of paper 32-97, contact Sarabeth Harris, MC 104, NIST, Boulder, Colo. 80303-3328, (303) 497-3237,