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Fire Growth and Smoke Transport Modeling with CFAST

The Consolidated Model of Fire and Smoke Transport, CFAST, is a computer program that fire investigators, safety officials, engineers, architects and builders can use to simulate the impact of past or potential fires and smoke in a specific building environment. CFAST is a two-zone fire model used to calculate the evolving distribution of smoke, fire gases and temperature throughout compartments of a building during a fire. These can range from very small containment vessels, on the order of 1 m3 to large spaces on the order of 1000 m3.

The latest version of the software, until now a DOS program, is designed to work with Windows and has been tested with Windows 2000 and XP. The CFAST package includes NIST’s Smokeview program, which visualizes with colored, three-dimensional animations the results of the CFAST simulation of a specific fire’s temperatures, various gas concentrations and growth and movement of smoke layers across multi-room structures.

Obtaining CFAST

The latest version of the software is version 6.0.10. The software and documentation is available for download.

  • Install CFAST with .NET framework (40 MB) -  A version of the setup program that includes the Microsoft .NET framework, required to run the software.
     
  • Install just CFAST (5 MB) - If the Microsoft .NET software is already installed on the computer where CFAST is to be run, a smaller setup program can be installed. 
     
  • CFAST User's Guide - The User's Guide for CFAST describes how to install the model, verify its correct installation, create input data in an appropriate form, and analyze of the output of a simulation.

  • CFAST Technical Reference Manual - The Technical Reference Manual for CFAST presents the underlying physical principles, provides a comparison with other models and experimental data, and includes a description of the limitations of the model.
     
  • Documentation for Smokeview - CFAST Version 6 includes NIST's Smokeview program for visualization.
     
  • Source Code – Source code for the latest development version of the model is available on the CFAST development site.
     
  • FAQs - Frequently asked questions for CFAST.
     
  • Version History - A version history of CFAST is available.
     
  • Archive - Older versions of the model are also available.

Support Options

We are interested in hearing your comments and suggestions. Many of the improvements to date in both CFAST and Smokeview are a result of feedback we have already received from users of the software.

Please go to the Discussion Group, for general questions and/or to provide feedback related to your experience using CFAST, Smokeview, the documentation, the web sites, etc. Often this will resolve your issue without reporting a specific bug to the developers.

Report to the Support Issue Tracker specific bugs or problems that you encounter with either CFAST or Smokeview.

See the Support page for more options.

What's New in CFAST

The most recent version of CFAST is version 6.0.10. 

Beginning with version 6.0.10, CFAST and CEdit were compiled with Visual Studio 2005.  This means that both new and existing users of earlier versions of the Windows CFAST will need to download and install Microsoft .NET version 2.0 (included in the larger download of CFAST) if it is not already installed on their computer.

Corrected subscript error in cfast input checking for ceiling-floor conduction connections that caused an error with simulations with 5 or more compartments. Corrected an error in the definition of fire objects to allow radiative fraction to be zero, not just greater than zero. Corrected a display error for CFAST files in smokeview that placed fires in the wrong compartment for visualization; calculations, spreadsheet, and printed output were correct.

Updated the GUI to Visual Studio 2005, including spreadsheet, auto-sizing, and preview libraries. Reversed order of CFAST log file in the message summary so that any errors would appear at the top of the list, more visible to the user. Changed limit on number of mechanical ventilation connections from 10 to 100. Corrected an error that prevented saving of an input file when compartments were removed from a simulation. Corrected an error that caused incorrect values for default fire position when engineering units were not set to m. Fixed compartment naming when a compartment is duplicated. Corrected an error when defining a new fire that did not assign a material to the fire (leading to an error 205 when running CFAST). Enabled RTI input for heat alarms (Previously, heat alarms were presumed to have a default value for the RTI). Corrected a subscript error that caused GUI error message for a compartment specified as a single zone if the compartment was the highest numbered compartment in the simulation.

Added the ability to define a general t-squared growth rate fire to the Edit Fire Objects window, allowing the user to select growth rate, peak HRR, steady burning time, and decay time, including predefined constants for slow, medium, fast, and ultra-fast t-squared fires. Added the ability to add and remove thermal properties on the thermal properties edit window. Redesigned the heat transfer connection tab to separate horizontal and vertical heat transfer specifications to allow for future enhancement of the horizontal connections to better support the HHEAT keyword in CFAST; for the moment, only a single, fractional connection is allowed on a given keyword line. Note that vertical heat transfer always assumes a fraction of one for the connection.

CFAST is developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the United States Department of Commerce. CFAST is free software developed through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) by employees of the Federal Government in the course of their official duties. Pursuant to Title 17, Section 105 of the United States Code, this work is not subject to copyright protection and is in the Public Domain.  

NIST assumes no responsibility whatsoever for use by other parties of its source code, documentation or compiled executables, and makes no guarantees, expressed or implied, about its quality, reliability, or any other characteristic. See the Disclaimer page for additional information.

 

 


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Last updated:  5/6/2008