The Future of Geographical and Scenario Based Fire & Gas Mapping

The technology underlying the assessment of flame and gas detector coverage has undergone significant advances in recent years, yet the most dramatic changes are still to come. For several years, the standard method for Fire and Gas Mapping, known as the “geographical” method, has been the only one in practical use. With advances in CAD integration, accurate ray casting and optimization, further developments of the geographic method will likely be small and incremental. The competing method of coverage assessment, that uses computational models of gas leaks and fires to predict detector response, is known as “scenario” based coverage, and is where almost all future technological advancements in Fire and Gas Mapping will lie. Major technical hurdles still need to be overcome for scenario based assessment to be of practical use, and there is currently virtually no regulatory framework or accepted methodologies for its use. The presentation will review the current state of the art for geographical coverage assessment, and present recent advances in CFD technology that will soon be available for scenario based coverage assessments.