SOFTWARE REVIEW

PCL's Analysis of Thermal Hazards on

Offshore Structures (PATHOS 2)
Bjarne C. Hagen and James A. Milke.
Hagen and Milke are with the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland.

PATHOS 2 is a heat transfer program that addresses the effect of fire exposure on
structural members and enclosures. The program, which can consider different kinds
of fires, structural shapes, and materials, uses pop-up menus and is mouse-driven. It
is available from Palm Computing Limited at PCL Index House, Ascot, Berkshire SL5
7EU, England.

Technical Background
PATHOS 2 addresses one-dimensional heat transfer in fire-exposed structural assem-
blies to determine their thermal response. The program uses an explicit finite-
difference formulation to calculate nodal temperatures within the assembly. The
model can account for temperature-dependent material properties.
The finite-difference equations include the time step and the thickness of each layer
of the material. Because PATHOS 2 has a pre-set time step of 1 second, the thickness
of the material is a key input parameter. The program recommends a minimum
thickness of the insulating material. Ifthe user stipulates a thickness that is less than
the recommended thickness, the calculations may become numerically unstable. In
some cases in which an unstable situation occurs, the program terrrfinates the run and
aborts execution of the program. The user must then re-start the program.
PATHOS 2 can "erode" insulation during the fire, so the user must input an erosion
factor in units of kW-hrs/mm. When the insulation is exposed to a fire, its thickness
is reduced as the exposure time increases. When all of the insulation has eroded, the
program asks if the run should continue. If the user answers "yes," the program sets
the erosion factor equal to 0 kW-hrs/mm and continues the analysis. Ifthe user wants
to terminate the run, however, the program aborts, and the user must restart it. The
need to restart the program makes it less user-friendly.
According to the user' s guide, the program accounts for the moisture content of the
insulation. However, there is no information describing how the moisture is treated
in the model.
PATHOS 2 also addresses the heating of a room due to heat transfer through the
walls, floor, and ceiling from a fire in an adjacent space. This is a very interesting
feature that few other elementary models address, but the approach PATHOS 2 uses
174 Fire Technology First Quarter 1994
is crude. The air temperature is calculated based on the heat flux from the substrate
(see Input). However, the user defines (estimates) the heat flux, so the accuracy of the
air temperature calculation depends directly on the estimate.
As part of the enclosure routine, PATHOS 2 can also determine the temperature of
the objects in the room. All these objects are assumed to have the same material
composition and are subject to a uniform heat flux from the surrounding air. Because
the air temperature is roughly estimated, the temperamre of the objects is roughly
estimated. Consequently, it is difficult to take the object temperature calculation
routine very seriously. Even though the routine in PATHOS 2 is weak, the concept
is good and should be improved in coming versions.

Documentation
The documentation for PATHOS 2 describes the installation and use of the program.
Unformnately, a dongle is provided as a security device to prevent unauthorized
copying. The program can be installed easily with the help of the users' guide, which
provides three examples to show how to input the data. However, only a cursory
description of the theoretical basis of the model is included. This information is
essential to users if they are to investigate the validity of the model for each
application, rather than treating it as a "black box." This information would also help
users assemble input data for unique simations that require messages when a run is
aborted. Most users would find it helpful to know why the program has terminated
and what they should avoid or change to complete a run.

Input/Output
The strongest feature of PATHOS 2 is how easily a scenario can be programmed. The
program uses pop-up menus and can be controlled using a mouse. The values that the
user gives are stored in different windows on the screen, which enables the user to see
what values are given at any time without having to return to the various menus. There
are windows for Fire, Substrate/Contour, Insulation, and Options. The Option menu
is the administrative part of the program.
When building a fire scenario in PATHOS 2, the user must give inputs for Fire,
Substrate, Section, and Insulation. There are seven options for defining a fire:
Radiation, Convection, Hydrocarbon Time-Temperature Curve, Cellulosic Time-
Temperature Curve, Hot Start, Variable, and File. The different options cannot be
combined to provide a description of a unique fire. If the initial ambient and room
temperatures are defined to be greater than the initial fire temperature, which is 0°C
in many of the pre-set fire curves, a discrepancy occurs. In this case, the insulation,
substrate, and room lose heat to the fire and become cooler. This flaw in the program
is distracting, but it has little impact on the final results. Nonetheless, it should be
corrected.
The Hydrocarbon Time-Temperature Curve is the Norwegian Petroleum Director-
ate (NPD), which is virtually identical to that of Lloyds Register "H" curve. The
Analysis of Thermal Hazards 175

Cellulosic Time-Temperature Curve is the B S 476 test curve, defined by the following
equation:

T = 345 log(8t + 1) (1)

where t is the elapsed time (minutes) and T is the furnace temperature (°C). For both
time-temperature curves, the user must give the duration of the fire.
For the Radiation and Convection options, the user must give a constant heat flux
and time duration to define the fire. The Hot Start involves a constant temperature for
the stated duration and can be used to simulate a pre-heated fumace. The user must
define both time duration and the temperature.
The user must choose between a radiating fire (fluxed-based) and a fumace fire
(temperature-based) and input the peak intensity and duration of the fire in the
Variable option. The program defines a fire using intemally provided equations. The
documentation only gives the equation for the temperature-based fire

T = Tù~ùxsin(----~-m1 (2)
k,2tl~m)
where T is the maximum temperature (°C) and ttiù,is the duration of fire in minutes.
When using the Füe option, the user defines a fire by setting up a time-temperature
curve or a time-flux curve. The file can be created using any text editor outside of
PATHOS 2. Because the program does an iteration for every second of the ftre, the
temperature is determined by linear interpolation between every user-defined time
step. The File option is limited to fires lasting up to 240 minutes.
The user can choose from the following options to define a substrate: Steel,
Aluminum, Concrete, Other, None, and File. For steel, aluminum, and concrete, pre-
set values for density, emissivity, specific heat, conductivity, and transition tempera-
ture are built into the program. This makes it very easy for the user to define these
substrates. However, the user must make sure that the values of the substrate in
question are the same as the values built into the program. When other materials are
used, values for density, emissivity, specific heat, conductivity, and transition tem-
perature must be defined. The transition temperature is a critical temperature
indicating a change in the material, such as its melting point. The user can edit the
material file incorporated in the program using a text editor outside PATHOS 2. The
user may also choose no substrate if he or she wants to test insulation only.
PATHOS 2 has been programmed to calculate heat transfer for the following
substrate shapes: Plate, Column or Beam (Hp/A), Tubular, and Firedoor. The
Firedoor option describes a thin metal casing covering the insulation. The Beam
option uses the heated perimeter divided by the cross-sectional area of the beam to
define the shape, which is comparable to the W/D ratio that is commonly referenced
in the United States.
176 Fite Technology First Quarter 1994

Table I
D e s c r i p t i o n of C o l u m n A s s e m b l i e s

W/D Hp/A Insulatlon Thickness

Shape (Ib/ft-in) (m-1) (in)

W6X16 0.57 248 0.75

WlOX49 0.83 168 2.19

The insulation part of the program is similar to the substrate part, with pre-set
material values for Ceramic, Vermiculite, Board, Intumescent, and GRP-Wrap. The
user can define other materials either as a single layer of insulation or as a composite
material with multiple layers. In both cases, the user must supply the thickness,
density, specific heat, saturation limit, K accelerator, and water content. A text editor
may be used to define a composite material, while PATHOS 2 may be used to define
the single-layer insulation. The program evaluates the values given and gives a
minimum thickness of the insulating material. If the user provides a thickness that is
less than the recommended value, the progratn may encounter numerical problems
and abort execution (see Technical Background).
An enclosure is defined under Options. The user defines a room by inserting
dimensions and defines an object in the room by giving its density and shape (cube,
sheet, or Hp/A). The user must also give the air ventilation rate in the room (m3/min).
The area exposed by the fire is given as a percentage of the total surface area of the
room.
The output from PATHOS 2 can be directed to a printer or to a data file that can be
manipulated using a spreadsheet program. The output data are Time (Min), Fire (°C),
Middle of Insulation (°C), Interface Ins-Sub (°C), Substrate (°C), Heat Flux (back and
front walls, kW/m2), and Enclosure (air and contents of the enclosure in °C).
The output data are given every minute, and PATHOS 2 provides a continuous graph
on-screen which can be imported into various word-processing programs.

Results
The results from PATHOS 2 are compared with results from FIRES-T3 and UL tests.
FIRES-T3 is a finite element heat transfer program that can perform one-, two-, and
three-dimensional unsteady heat transfer analysis. 1 For this comparison, two wide-
flange steel columns with spray-applied insulation are chosen. A description of the
two column assemblies is provided in Table 1.
Figure 1 shows the results of the analysis of the W6X16 column. In addition to the
results from PATHOS 2, calculations using FIRES-T3 2 are provided. The fire
resistance for the two assemblies from the calculations and tests are presented in
Analysis of Thermal Hazards 177

1000.0. I 0 0 0 ~

900.0 900

~ ' 800.0 800

o
700.0 700

600.0 600
a

l/y
ùE 500.0 500

.D 400.0 400
B
B 300.0
E
200.0
/ 300

200

100.0 J 100

0.0 0
lO 20 30 40 50 60 70
Time in Minutes

Figure 1. Results of analysis of W 6 x l 6 column.

700.0
Substrate
M
o 600.0 --+-
•~.
m
Air temperature
.jIP »K
IP 500.0 Contents temp
iio
«
"~ 400.0
a0
•| 300.0

P 200.0
0
Il,
E
100.0

0.0
60 120 180 240 300 360
Time in Minutes

Figure 2. Results of fire impinging on concrete wall with

sprayed insulation.
178 Fire Technology First Quarter 1994
Table 2
Comparison of Fire Resistance (minutes)

Shape UL PATHOS 2 FIRES-T3

W6X 16 58 54 62

W10X49 217 202 205

Table 2. The fite resistance, which is defined as the time it takes the steel structural
members to reach 538°C (1000°F), is given in minutes. 2 There is good correlation
between the results of PATHOS 2 and FIRES-T3 with the data from UL. In these two
cases, PATHOS 2 provides the shortest fire resistance times.
Figure 2 presents the results of a fire impinging on a concrete wall 10 cm thick with
1 cm of sprayed insulation. The temperatures of the enclosure and an object within
the room are indicated in the graph. Unfortunately, no data are available to review the
accuracy of these predictions.

Conclusion
PATHOS 2 is a useful model for calculating heat transfer in structural members. The
pop-up menus make the program easy to work with and give the user an overview of
the input. PATHOS 2 is useful for conducting a first approximati0n of the temperature
rise in structural members. Based on the information available, however, other
routines appear to be very crude approximations.

References
1. R. H. Iding, Z. Nizamuddin, and B. Bresler, A Computer Programfor the Fire
Response of Structures-Thermal Three-Dimensional Version, UCB FRB 77-15,
University of California, Berkeley, 1977.
2. Estimating the Fire Resistance ofTubular Steel Columns, presented at the ASCE
Spring Convention, Denver, Colo., 1985.