Faster-Than-Real-Time Model for Predicting the Spread of Smoke in Ships Navy SBIR FY2005.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2005.1 Topic No.: N05-050 Topic Title: Faster-Than-Real-Time Model for Predicting the Spread of Smoke in Ships Proposal No.: N051-050-0356 Firm: Creare Inc. P.O. Box 71 Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 Contact: Marc Kenton Phone: (603) 643-3800 Web Site: www.creare.com Abstract: A new generation of Navy ships needs innovations to enable effective damage control with greatly reduced manning. A particular need is software to predict the spread of fire, smoke, radioactive materials, and other toxic agents in real time. Such software could take immediate actions to reduce the initial spread of an incident and would then help damage control personnel obtain situational awareness and work more effectively. Existing software for predicting the spread of fire and hazardous materials are generally ill suited for this task due to insufficient accuracy, the neglect of important phenomena, or excessive runtime. An essential requirement is that the software support the efficient calculation of key model input quantities from sensor data. Creare proposes to develop a software model that is sufficiently accurate, fast, and flexible enough to derive the unknown inputs, while also representing all the phenomena of interest. In Phase I, we will develop a prototype of the model and demonstrate its use for modeling smoke propagation. In Phase II, we will refine the model, develop suitable inverse algorithms to calculate model inputs from sensor data, and coordinate with the Navy and a shipyard to prepare to implement the software in a selected ship. Benefits: The Creare software could be used to help control incidents (either accidents or events induced by hostile persons) on commercial ships, offshore oil platforms, land-based industrial facilities such as power plants, and large buildings. The combination of accurate, fast-running, physics-based modeling with effective inverse problem algorithms to refine the estimates for key model inputs will support civilian users in fire fighting, evacuation decisions, and other mitigation measures. Return