ComputIT - Fire Safety Design

It is important for every company to use the most advanced technology available for fire safety design to safeguard personnel and facilities. Computational Industry Technologies (ComputIT) has worked for more than three decades to make significant contributions to improve safety in the industry, to reduce the negative impacts on the environment from oil and gas activity, and to contribute to large cost savings through the use of advanced and accurate methods for design.

ComputIT is a specialist company working internationally in the field of environmental and reactive flows. Our focus is on CFD-based turbulent flow and combustion using Kameleon FireEx KFX® for both analysis and design. KFX is probably the most advanced CFD code for gas dispersion, flare and fire simulation, and is gradually becoming an industry standard in this area.

Fire safety consultancy

Our fire safety approach is unique and our utilization of the most modern CFD and FE technologies for practical purposes has proven very useful for the industry. Visualisation is regarded as very important and is strongly emphasized in our analyses. We offer consultancy services in the areas of fire safety, combustion, environment and flares for all kinds of oil and gas platforms, FPSOs, onshore process plants and combustion devices in general. Our services include:

• Fire safety design – simulation of all kind of fires and gas dispersion by KFX for personnel safety, escape route analysis / design, etc.
• Fire safety design – fire simulations for safe and optimum design, including structural fire response analysis and optimum design of passive fire protection for facility integrity
• Active fire protection system design – simulation, analysis and design of active fire protection systems for fire mitigation by deluge, mist, monitors, etc
• Flare analysis – flare simulation by KFX, also including ignition, start up, radiation, soot and noise analysis
• Environment – simulation and analysis of combustion in burner equipment / flare tips for optimum and environmentally friendly design
• Ventilation / HVAC – turbulent flow impact on, for instance, helicopter operation, applied thermodynamics

KFX handles all kinds of hydrocarbon fires; jet fires, spray fires and pool fires, as well as LNG dispersion and fires. KFX is commercialized by ComputIT.

Structural fire response analysis

ComputIT also works in close cooperation with Aker Solutions for structural fire response analysis and the streamlined interface between KFX and the finite element code USFOS provides a unique feature for optimum and safe design.

Offshore fire safety design experience

The main market of ComputIT is the international oil and gas industry, and in particular the offshore sector that we have been working closely with for about 30 years. We have been involved in most offshore fields in the Norwegian sector, in a lot of Gulf of Mexico projects, as well as for installations in Africa, in Middle East and in the Newfoundland area. Similar analyses have been carried out for onshore plants in several European countries, in Korea and in Taiwan.

Both the development and industrialization of KFX are done in collaboration with StatoilHydro, Total, ENI-group, ConocoPhillips, Gaz de France, BP, Sandia National Laboratories, engineering companies, risk management companies and universities worldwide. ComputIT has also been engaged by governmental bodies for the investigation of fire accidents. For instance, Professor Bjørn F Magnussen of ComputIT was engaged as a technical fire expert witness after the Piper Alpha accident.