An Advanced Simulation based 3D Framework and Toolkit for Fire Protection and Fire PRA

At 10.8% Compound annual growth rate(CAGR), Fire Protection Systems Market Size is expected to reach 9.34 Bn USD by 2025. This however reflects only the systems but does not include the services, consultancy and other operator expenses incurred by the industry sectors impacted. Modeling and implementing fire safety for nuclear power plants is an expensive and complex activity. It is difficult to computationally provide assurance that the safety thresholds and mitigation methods are currently adequate. The need is for more accurate modeling, optimized mitigation techniques and reduce related oper- ational costs to make nuclear power more viable. FRI3D is a toolkit that has been under development with the intent of achieving realistic characterization of fire risks in probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) models and reduce operational cost to the nuclear facilities. It aims to reduce the complexity in fire modeling, be user-friendly, quickly enable visualization and modeling of various complex scenarios in an interactive 3D environment. The proposed development would leverage upon the state-of-the-art frameworks NDYN and NVIS, developed by Centroid LAB, for 3D modeling, simulation setup and visualization. Our commercial vision for the product road map is to evolve the FRI3D tool from the research stage to a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for indus- try use in Phase I. The initial coupling is with compartment based Consolidated Fire And Smoke Transport (CFAST) 1code in Phase I. Towards this end a considerable amount of work including code has already been completed as part of the research thus far. This provides solid confidence and assurance of reaching the MVP product – ready for industry use – within Phase I timescales and budget. The full range tool which would include other simple equation based Fire Dynamics Tools (FDTs) to full 3D discretization with Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) 2 and other codes is planned for Phases II and III, thereby enabling the industry to have one integrated platform across all stages of analysis and operational use. The user/operator would be given a choice among various fire modeling approaches (FDTs, CFAST or FDS) to simulate the fire propagation for the given zones and scenarios. As the simulation progresses, various outputs and other quantities of interest (temperature, failed equipment, etc.) would be generated and displayed with analysis. We believe that this is an ideal technology transfer opportunity suited best for an STTR. FRI3D is currently a research product and we intend to take this product to industry. Towards this purpose, we plan to continue working with Idaho National Laboratory and include industry partners like Zachry Nuclear (Zachry Group) for Phase I to build a MVP of FRI3D.During this phase we will also develop a complete go to market strategyfor the MVP and estimate the total tangible and quantified market potential. Industry practitioners including Caliburn, Jacobsen Analytics, French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (letters of support attached) have expressed strong support for Centroid LAB’s effort in development and commercialization of FRI3D.