gov.uk An Agency of the Health and Safety Executive gov.uk An Agency of the Health and Safety Executive Computational Modelling at HSL Centre for Modelling and Simulation Pre-Launch and “Shadow” Steering Committee Meeting 23 September 2009

An Agency of the Health and Safety Executive Health & Safety Laboratory HSL is Britain’s leading industrial health and safety facility Employs over 400 staff of which over a third hold doctorates. Experience across all sectors, including: fire & process safety, CFD, exposure control, human factors etc. Involved in: –Incident Investigations –Scientific support for policy making and enforcement

An Agency of the Health and Safety Executive Computational Modelling Activities Application of computational models to address health & safety problems Independent assessment of modelling submitted in safety cases Independent evaluation of model capabilities and limitations Input into standards setting Development of computational models

An Agency of the Health and Safety Executive Examples Assessment: –Fuel storage pond –Boiler spine –Smoke movement in an underground station –Gas leaks in enclosures –Fires in channel tunnel Evaluation: –Fire & Explosion model reviews –FLACS dispersion modelling review –Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) review –LNG dense gas dispersion: model evaluation protocol and validation database (NFPA) Applications: –Buncefield vapour cloud and explosion –HySafe: EU FP6 Network of Excellence, H 2 dispersion & deflagration –Vulcan: development of fire and blast resistant structures for aerospace applications –International Standard Problem 49: hydrogen deflagration

An Agency of the Health and Safety Executive Expectations, Opportunities and Advice Quality & Trust Priorities: Verification and Validation Code Verification –Code quality assurance –Well-documented releases (open source?) Model Validation –Experimental uncertainty: repeatability, measurement errors –Modelling: grid, numerics, boundary conditions, model parameters –“Blind” joint model evaluation exercises Simple underlying flow cases Realistic flows involving: combustion, radiation, conjugate heat transfer, multi-phase –Open reporting: publish even the bad results –Peer-reviewed model results database: should this be regarded as equivalent to a peer-reviewed publication?

An Agency of the Health and Safety Executive Useful Initiatives Generic best-practice guides –ERCOFTAC BPG (Casey & Wintergerste, 2000) –QNET Knowledge Base ( –NAFEMS initiatives CFD Code Development –FDS ( Verification & Validation Discussion forum NIST Annual Fire Conference online –Saturne Wiki (