Fire and Smoke Modeling Services

Fire, Smoke, and Egress Modeling

As building designs become more complex, maintaining a sufficient understanding of how fire affects the structure and occupants are critical. For atriums, sports facilities, malls, detention facilities, warehouses, car parking garages, and for alternate code approaches, FSC performs computerized simulations utilizing the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) program developed by NIST. FSC creates models to predict the various effects of fire and smoke in different “what if” scenarios to ensure the safety of all egressing occupants.

Simulations are used to show compliance with required code provisions or as part of alternative approaches to allow alternative egress or fire resistance solutions to help achieve project and design goals. In lieu of outdated hand calculations, many of our clients have opted for our engineers to use this state-of-the-art program and approach for evaluating the life safety characteristics of a building during design phase due to its importance.

The utilization of this program and the accompanying Pathfinder Egress modeling software, aids in the project design phase to optimize smoke exhaust and makeup air locations; thus reducing exhaust quantities required by code equations.

The model requires extensive time and expertise to set up as it produces results that are far more detailed than approximations used for the typical code required. With the assessment completed, our engineers provide information useful in determining alternate approaches to meet code requirements for building fire resistance.

FSC’s process is that of full coordination with the building team in order to meet project schedules and pricing, presentation to code and fire officials to ensure parameters and methodologies and acceptable, and thorough documentation for timely approvals.