ESi's fire science team has a wealth of experience evaluating issues related to ignition, fire growth, flame spread and material fire performance. Their expertise spans a variety of complementary engineering and scientific disciplines which are critical to properly evaluating fire dynamics and fire behavior, including fire protection engineering, mechanical engineering, material behavior, and thermodynamics. In addition, they can employ the full range of fire analysis capabilities, including fire and computational fluid dynamics modeling, fire and flammability testing, and chemical analysis and testing.

During human history, accidental fires have brought destruction, fatalities, and injuries. To prevent these and understand why these events behave in such a way, fire science has developed models to predict such impacts. Fire modeling is the use of empirical and mathematical models to predict the thermal and species behavior during a prescribed fire. This estimation evaluates the numerical values of the expected temperatures and species concentrations during the event. These values are compared with known impact criteria for a detailed understanding of the scenario. Similar to fire modeling, blast dynamics modeling, gas dispersion modeling, and gas migration modeling through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can be used to analyze consequences from other types of incidents including explosions, vessel ruptures, and leaks.

During an investigation, fire modeling can be used to verify the physical evidence and available information, providing a means for testing hypotheses. They can also be used to screen out unvalidated information. Arguments that are backed with a fire model are stronger because these are sustained by the science of the model, which has been verified and validated by numerous experiments, and is meticulously maintained to keep pace with the state of scientific knowledge. A model that agrees with the physical evidence provides a more conclusive understanding of the materials and human behaviors during an incident.

During risk assessments, the thermal and species behavior predicted are used to evaluate potential material and human impact, allowing for an assessment of the fire safety measures and systems design. Such a study permits an improvement of the safety measures and can prevent undesired human and business impacts.

ESi has the capability of performing fire or consequence modeling to support any client’s requirement, allowing for strong analysis results.