TABLE OF CONTENTS Leonard Y.Cooper
Dr. Leonard Y. Cooper was a research engineer in the Building and Fire Research Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology from 1978 1998. Since 1998 he has been a senior scientist/engineer at Hughes Associates Inc., a fire protection engineering research and development firm. Since 1978 he has focused on applying a broad range of the physical and mechanical engineering sciences to develop and transfer research results into technically sound engineering practices in the field of applied fire safety. His research included the development of mathematical models of fire phenomena and on the assembly of these into compartment fire models and associated computer programs for practical and research-oriented compartment fire simulations.
The following generic problem must be solved if one is to be able to establish the fire safety of building designs:
| Given: | Initiation of a fire in a compartment or enclosed space. |
| Predict: | The environment that develops at likely locations of occupancy, at likely locations of fire/ smoke sensor hardware (e.g., detectors and sprinkler links), and in locations of safe refuge and along likely egress paths. |
| Compute: | The time of fire/smoke sensor hardware response and the time of onset of conditions untenable to life and/or property. This computation would be carried out from the above predictions, using known response characteristics of people, hardware, and materials. |
The above is only a simple sketch of the overall problem that is likely to be associated with the interesting details of many real...
