December 17, 2001—A research team from the Department of Energys Sandia National Laboratories has developed modeling and simulation tools for assessing the threat and vulnerability of buildings to chemical and biological attacks.
This includes looking at how various chemical and biological agents—such as anthrax, smallpox, sarin, and mustard gas—move and deposit inside a building, developing and assessing mitigation strategies, guiding the use of detection methods, and examining the effectiveness of cleanup and decontamination efforts.
Sandia researcher Richard Griffith began working on the project following the 1995 sarin gas release in Tokyos subway system where it became apparent that chemical and biological attacks by terrorists could be a future trend.
Using sophisticated computer modeling and visualization capabilities, he can simulate how agents flow through a building and deposit on various surfaces.
“We start by mapping out the building and creating a computational model from the electronic AUTOCAD blueprints, including all the rooms and areas served by each air handler and all the air ducts,” Griffith says. “Then we simulate the release of a chemical or biological agent directly into different parts of the building, or from the outside for exterior releases.”
The computer model, known as KCNBC, predicts where the agent will move as a function of time following its release, producing a movie that gives researchers a view of agent transport and concentration. Simulations include a variety of agent release scenarios using real properties for a number of chemical and biological materials.
This modeling capability has been applied to several facilities, including an eight-story federal courthouse, a military command and control center and a large airport terminal building. For more information, contact Sandia National Laboratories.
