Next phase of CFD integration in Phast

Back in December 2021, CFD modelling was introduced to Phast for the first time, via version 8.6. This was made possible by our CFD code KFX, which has particular strengths in fire modelling.

Like Phast, KFX has a very strong history of development, stretching all the way back to the 1970s and built on the back of joint industry projects, ensuring KFX is very focussed on solving real-world problems.

ComputIT, the company who owned KFX, was acquired by DNV in 2017, ensuring that DNV could offer its customers the full range of consequence modelling technology. One of the motivators for the acquistion is that we saw many ways in which Phast and KFX could be integrated so that the safety professional has the right tools for the problems that need to be solved.

Following very positive feedback about Phast 8.6, which provided CFD modelling for pool fires, our developers and modellers are working on the next phase of CFD integration, focussing on the following areas:

• enabling CFD modelling for jet fires
• visualising flames in the 3D viewer
• support for a much wider range of materials when running CFD calculations
• updates to the user interface for working with the 3D viewer

I have to say that the visualising of flames is particularly exciting; it really brings to life the scenarios being modelled.

The work is going really well and we believe it shouldn't be too long before customers can get their hands on these improvements. As always, we will be doing a webinar to demonstrate these new capabilities, so watch out for the email invite and posts on LinkedIn!

Any comments and feedback are welcome.