(575e) High Fidelity, High Performance Simulation of Accidental Releases, Fires and Explosions in the Energy Industry

Grid computing offers an opportunity to significantly improve the intervention in fire and explosion emergencies. CFD and FE techniques are now sufficiently advanced to accurately model the spread of a fire or explosion and its effects on structures. Time-accurate, full physics simulations of accidental fires and explosions require consideration of fundamental gas and condensed phase chemistry, structural mechanics, turbulent reacting flows, convective and radiative heat transfer, and mass transfer. It is also required to model the physical complexities from the molecular level of high energy materials, through millimeter-sized representations of the container, to the meter-sized representations of the fire spread [www.csafe.utah.edu]. The Computational and Access Grids/visualization module provide a computational, visualization and collaboration infrastructure that can effectively support the multiphysics modeling, simulation and effective display of these large-scale, complex phenomena. In this research, we are focused on providing science-based tools, and deploying them on the Grid computing environment, for the high fidelity numerical simulation of accidental releases, fires ands explosions, especially within the context of handling, storage and distribution of the natural gas. We are also investigating the coupling of the micro-scale and meso-scale contributions to the macroscopic application in order to provide full-physics accuracy and the effective utilization of the Grid computing environment and consisting supercomputers. The ability of simulations using this system will help better evaluate the risks and safety issues associated with fires and explosions, through high performance computing and high speed network based cooperations of collaborating researchers and organizations.