The Computational Fire Dynamics Lab at Case Western Reserve University, is led by Dr. Ya-Ting Tseng Liao. The lab mission is threefold:

• To continue to improve the accuracy and realism of the chemistry and physics underlying computational models of combustion, fire, and fire behavior.
• To design experiments that provide data that can help clarify, prove, or suggest model parameters. Working closely with our collaborators, as a team we can perform these experiments and further refine our models.
• To use computational models of fire to predict fire behavior, to characterize safety risks in specific situations (fuel arrangements, fuel types, geometries, gravity levels, etc.), and to develop safer structures that reduce the chance that fires will start, or, that limit the damage that a fire would cause.

Our interest is in basic fire science, but also in better understanding fire behavior in specific situations such as in aircraft or spacecraft, in discrete fuels, or in situations with unique chemistry, physics, or geometrical considerations, such as solar panel fires or lithium-ion battery fires.

Our lab is part of the Fire Group at Case Western Reserve University, which consists of three labs in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department (led by Prof. Liao, Prof. Takahashi, and Prof. T’ien) and another three labs in the Macromolecular Science and Engineering department (led by Prof. Ishida, Prof. Shiraldi, and Prof. Wnek). Together, these groups provide comprehensive and synergistic capability in fire modeling, experimentation, and evaluation of material flammability.